A group of three women who pleaded guilty to an unprovoked assault on a teenage girl are in custody after a judge sentenced them recently to 30 days in jail.
Dellis Emily Bernard, 28, Chelsea Marie Jadis, 26, and Mary Sheena Jadis, 31, all appeared before Chief Judge Nancy Orr in provincial court in Charlottetown where they were scheduled to go to trial.
Instead, the three each changed their pleas to guilty of assaulting the girl.
The Crown stayed a second assault charge against Mary Jadis.
On Oct. 17, four youth, including the victim, were at a trailer in Scotchfort where they were socializing but not drinking.
At around 11:30 p.m. a vehicle arrived, and five people who were all under the influence of alcohol got out.
Crown attorney Gerald Quinn said there had been an incident in June involving the victim after she was driving and hit a dog that belonged to one of the women.
The victim said she had already apologized for what happened.
Mary started the assault on the victim, who was 17 at the time, much smaller than the women and unable to defend herself.
Bernard and Chelsea also assaulted the victim.
The girl’s friends tried to help but the women, who Quinn described as “fairly large people,” stopped them.
After the assault, one of the youth told his mother what happened and she went to confront the women at a nearby home.
Mary punched the mother in the face.
In his submissions, Quinn said the women should go directly to jail.
“The performance they put on that night is atrocious,” he said.
Orr said all of the women were of an age that she would have anticipated their behaviour would be more appropriate and mature than it was.
In sentencing the women to 30 days in jail, Orr accepted a joint recommendation from the Crown and defence.
She said it was on the lower end of the scale than would be expected for their type of behaviour, but their guilty plea meant significant savings because the victims didn’t have to testify.
Along with the jail time, the women, who are all Aboriginal, will be on probation for one year with conditions that include writing apology letters to the four youth.
They must also each perform 50 hours of community service that will be arranged in consultation with band council.
