(file photo)

By Susan McNeil

Crime

Appeal court upholds seven month sentence for Pinehouse man found hiding in furnace

May 11, 2023 | 1:00 PM

A Pinehouse Lake man, who was found hiding in a furnace before being bit by a police dog and arrested for breaching release conditions, will not serve additional time in jail.

The Crown appealed the seven-month sentence given to Jerry Tinker and while the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, they declined to change the sentence.

Tinker’s offences date back to September 2021 when RCMP in Pinehouse Lake were told that Tinker had guns and was planning a shootout with police.

The Sask. Emergency Response Team was called and four days later joined local officers, went to Tinker’s house and tried to arrest him.

He ran away on foot but was ultimately tasered and arrested and during his time in custody, told an officer to “take off these handcuffs, I’ll knock you the F#&! out”, which led to a charge of resisting arrest and another of uttering threats.

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Tinker was released a month later with a 24-hour curfew and the direction to stay more than 50 kilometres away from the community.

At the end of November, the RCMP discovered he was in a home in Pinehouse Lake and executed a search warrant.

They found him hiding in a furnace and he was then bitten by the police dog and injured in the arrest. This led to more charges of obstructing a police officer and breaching his release order.

A Crime Stoppers photo of Jerry Tinker.

He then stayed in custody until he was sentenced to four charges that he pleaded guilty to. Others were withdrawn by the Crown.

For sentencing, the Crown had asked for two years in jail followed by a year of probation.

The prosecutor also point out that Tinker is listed on the National Flagging System that tracks high-risk, violent offenders. In his record, he had convictions for obstruction, assaulting officers and running from officers in 2003, again in 2005, a warrant for resisting arrest in 2012 and two more in 2020.

Tinker’s defense lawyer, however, proposed time-served or a conditional sentence, noting that no charges had been laid for planning a police shootout and that all of his following charges came form that report.

His lawyer also pointed out Gladue factors that reduced Tinker’s moral culpability or were mitigating circumstances.

Tinker is Métis and at 38 was a grandfather when he was sentenced. Growing up he saw physical and emotional abuse, was apprehended from his parents and stayed with other family members form a young age.

In his testimony during his sentencing hearing, Tinker said he had distanced himself from past gang affiliations and that he had PTSD that was triggered when interacting with police.

He also filed a complaint against police in 2020 saying they used excessive force and did not give him enough medical care while in jail.

He said he was co-operative and that while he was taken to the courthouse for his sentencing hearing, there was a rope on the seat next to him that had been used by another community member committing suicide.

Using Gladue factors and the fact that Tinker’s offenses were decreasing as time went by unless it involved interactions with police, the sentencing judge opted for a time-served sentence and no probation.

Appeal Court judges disagreed with the Crown’s assertion that sentence ignored the gravity of the offences and Tinker’s degree of responsibility.

They concluded that the sentence was within the range of what it should have been was not demonstrably unfit.

The decision was unanimous.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com