Ryan Hobbs narrowly managed to avoid heading to jail four months ago with a last-minute plea to a judge.
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Ryan Hobbs narrowly managed to avoid heading to jail four months ago with a last-minute plea to a judge.
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But the 37-year-old Sarnia man’s attempts at staying out of a cell slammed shut Wednesday – and he was partly to blame.
Hobbs was mere minutes from being whisked out of a city courtroom in handcuffs on Sept. 7 and taken across the street to start serving a 40-day jail sentence. But as Justice Krista Lynn Leszczynski was going over the probation order that would be in effect after his expected mid-October release, Hobbs spoke up.
Was there any way he could avoid going to jail?
“I’d do any other sentence,” he said at the time.
Leszczynski paused that Tuesday before turning to defense lawyer Robert McFadden and asking if a conditional sentence – house arrest – could work for his client. McFadden said he hadn’t previously considered that due to his lack of employment and at-times unstable housing.
After a brief private discussion, though, they agreed to consider going that route.
“I’ve just advised him that the ball’s in his park. He has to co-operate 100 per cent,” McFadden said.
But Hobbs dropped the ball.
The case was adjourned multiple times for him to meet with officials to write pre-sentence and electronic-monitoring reports, but he skipped out on the latter and the former didn’t go well.
“The pre-sentence report does not paint a picture of somebody who’s in the process of moving onwards and upwards,” assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Jones said Wednesday.
“This was not a sterling report from the probation (office),” McFadden agreed.
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Still, despite a lack of interest in counseling for substance-abuse issues and spotty employment, McFadden argued a jail stint would set his client back. Based on the “very” strongly worded report noting Hobbs was “not amenable” to counselling, Jones disagreed.
“It’s hard to see how it would set him back other than the general sense that nobody wants to go to jail,” she said.
Hobbs told the judge he knows he should be punished for what he’s done.
“I just don’t want to leave my family right now,” he said. “That’s my biggest concern.”
When the dust settled, Leszczynski decided his 40-day sentence “must” be served in a real jail cell and not at home.
“I hope you use this time, sir, to continue to reflect on and work on those efforts and you continue to do so on your release,” she said as he was led out of the court by a security staffer. “Good luck.”
The pair of convictions he was sentenced for took place at separate times. A Sarnia police officer who knew he was banned from driving saw him behind the wheel of a green Ford Focus on Oct. 24, 2019. About nine months later, he was caught with a knife while riding in a car, which flouted the rules of his probation order.
Hobbs already had seven convictions for breaching court orders – he was also late Wednesday and an arrest warrant was briefly issued until he arrived – and three driving-related convictions. He’s now banned from driving for the next year.
The judge also tacked on a one-year probation order. Other charges were withdrawn.