By Bob Mackin | Prince George Citizen
Judge Michael Brecknell sentenced a 23-year-old woman Nov. 28 to another 50 days in jail for stabbing a man at the front desk of the Mark’s Place Shelter in Prince George last New Year’s Day.
The official Provincial Court sentence for Shenoa Rose Thomas is 18 months in jail and 18 months probation for assault with a weapon and breach of probation. Crown, which wanted a two-year sentence, stayed the charge of assault causing bodily harm.
However, Thomas had already spent 331 days in custody, which qualified her for the time-and-a-half credit of 497 days. That left 50 days to serve.
Brecknell said the law required him to consider the least-onerous form of punishment, particularly as it applies to an Indigenous offender like Thomas.
“But I also have to keep in mind that Thomas’s history suggests that she just does not accept that she has to operate within norms of society,” Brecknell said.
Thomas had been asked by the man working at the front desk, a refugee from Nigeria, to leave because she had broken the rules by smoking in her room. Thomas left, but returned a few hours later with a knife that she concealed. She proceeded to stab the man in the top of the shoulder. Luckily, his quick reaction left him with a minor injury.
Brecknell said Thomas has a criminal record dating back to 2017 with numerous assaults, arsons and attempted robberies. But she also has cognitive difficulties and is a significant abuser of substances. An expert assessment deemed her a high risk to reoffend.
Brecknell said that 50 days should be a sufficient time to wait for a vacancy to enter the Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction in Coquitlam, on the grounds of the former Riverview asylum campus.
When Thomas pleaded guilty on July 29, court heard that she had used heroin and crystal meth at age 12. While in Colony Farm in Port Coquitlam for a mental fitness assessment in 2024, she attacked and assaulted two female psychiatric nurses, one of whom was pregnant.
