Crown seeks explanation, details on Charles’ Gladue report findings
For at least the third time, the sentencing date for the man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl last July has been adjourned.
When his sentencing proceedings actually begin, Jared Charles will be sentenced for 10 charges, including kidnapping, abduction, child abandonment and sexual assault.
Charles pleaded guilty to the charges late last year. The original incident in July last year triggered a province-wide amber alert after the girl went missing from a playground. Charles was arrested a short time later, while the girl was found on a rural property outside of the Prince Albert.
He was set to appear in Prince Albert provincial court on Friday to begin sentencing proceedings for his guilty pleas, but the proceedings had to be adjourned to April 20 on the orders of Justice H. M. Harradence, because of a request from Crown prosecutor Cam Scott.
Scott and Charles’ defence attorney had been waiting on the completion of a Gladue report for Charles.
By Friday, the report was done, but Scott wanted more information on report writer Christine Goodwin’s inclusion of medical sources in the report; the sources are referenced, but they’re not appended to the report, he said.
Scott said knowing more about those sources – and actually reading them – is important, because Goodwin’s report makes specific references to Charles’ apparent partial fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Scott pointed to the fact that the disorder is considered as falling on a spectrum of behaviours and characteristics.
If Charles does in fact have partial fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Scott said, the medical sources referenced in the Gladue report ought to be included with it, and the court ought to know where on the spectrum Charles falls.
Harradence said that Goodwin was schedule to be in court on Friday, but she was not. When the court clerk tried to reach Goodwin by phone, she did not answer.
Charles’ sentencing proceedings were rescheduled to April 20 at 9 a.m. in courtroom 1.
He was 19 years old at the time of the kidnapping and sexual assault.
Charles was originally charged with aggravated sexual assault, but the charge was later withdrawn.
