PICTOU
A 23-year-old man has been found guilty of threatening a guard at the North East Nova Scotia Correctional Facility.
Dylan Douglas Michael Parsons was charged in August 2015 with intending to provoke a state of fear in a justice participant and this was done in order to impede the performance of her duties.
Pictou Supreme Court Justice Michael Wood released his decision Friday that stated Parsons is guilty of the charge.
The court was told that on Aug. 15, 2015, while Parsons was an inmate at the North East Nova Scotia Correctional Facility, corrections officers entered Parson’s cell in the segregation unit because they believed he was in possession of excess clothing and towels.
He was stripped naked and handcuffed while all of the items, including the mattress, were removed from the cell.
A half hour later, officers entered the cell again to remove an item Parsons had placed over the camera in the room.
An hour after this incident, the officer noticed Parsons was yelling from his cell, upset and hitting the door.
He yelled at the officer involved in the incident, “I will shit-bomb you and stab you up because you can’t keep me in here. I have no problem assaulting you and doing Pen time because that will me look super cool. I will make sure I end your career.”
The officer reported the incident to her superiors and Parsons was charged. However, his defence lawyer argued that his client never said any such words and they were fabricated by staff at the jail to cover up alleged mistreatment from earlier in the evening.
Wood said there is no evidence to support allegations brought up by the defence, but the evidence does prove that Parsons was looking directly at the victim when he expressed this words through his cell door.
The Crown argued that Parsons wanted to instil fear in the corrections officer with his words, in particular, the reference about her job.
Wood said no doubt Parsons words were spoken out of frustration from the night’s earlier events that left him handcuffed and sitting on a cement slab all because he had an extra towel and shirt.
However, his comment about “doing Pen time” shows he knew the implications of his threats.
