Taser at fast food outlet results in prison for man

A Brantford judge objected to sentences proposed by both defense and Crown lawyers for a man who demonstrated a Taser disguised as an iPhone to friends in a Brantford McDonald’s restaurant in 2020.

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“This was an incredibly serious situation,” Justice Kathleen Baker said recently as she sentenced Michael David Westcott.

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“In my view, the sentences being proposed are completely out of step with the expectation of the community which would be horrified to learn there was an individual in a restaurant like that.”

At the time a person reported Westcott talking about having a Taser and overheard the distinct “sparking” of the weapon, Westcott was under a release order that put him effectively under house arrest.

Moreover, despite that Westcott – who endured serious trauma as a child and has an acquired brain injury – pleaded guilty to five offenses committed over the last four years. Baker said he’s done little to address his own problems.

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“Mr. Westcott doesn’t seem to be getting the message.”

In court, Westcott pleaded to charges of having an unauthorized weapon and breach of release orders in March 2020, breaking and entering an abandoned Dalhousie Street building with bolt-cutters and crowbar in May 2019, breaking into a rental property that was under renovation in August 2019 and ignoring his court date in October 2022.

At the time of his sentencing, Westcott was already incarcerated on charges from another jurisdiction and facing further charges from Hamilton.

“He has some 92 separate offenses dating back 24 years,” Baker said, noting that many of Westcott’s crimes included violence.

“The main mitigating factor is his guilty pleas but, only after four years and an extended period of not attending court and being ‘in the wind.’

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While the sentence suggested by the Crown was 19 to 21 months and the one suggested by Westcott’s defense lawyer was about 19 months, both used the concept of “totality” to come up with their numbers.

Totality takes into account multiple offenses so that the final sentence isn’t an overwhelming amount of time.

“Totality is not intended to constitute a volume discount,” objected Baker.

Instead, the judge opted to send Westcott to the penitentiary with a sentence totaling 31 months less six months of time already served.

That means she couldn’t add a probation order to the sentence but the judge said it’s up to Westcott to turn things around.

“Here we have a 50-year-old man who has been engaged fairly consistently with the criminal justice system for over half of his life and he’s going to have to make the decision is he wants to undertake rehabilitation.”

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