Winnipeg man given 23-year sentence for 2 brutal assaults

WINNIPEG — A Winnipeg man has been sentenced to 23 years in prison after viciously sexually assaulting two women.

Justin Hudson, 22, was given consecutive sentences for the separate attacks that left a woman and a teenage girl with severe injuries.

Hudson, and a teenager who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to the assaults.

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Both attacks happened just hours apart in November, 2014.

In the first attack, a 16-year-old girl was robbed, beaten and sexually assaulted. She ended up in the Assiniboine River, dragged herself out, only to be beaten unconscious with a hammer.

She was found battered and bruised body under a downtown bridge near the Assiniboine River.

Hours later, Hudson and his co-accused came across a 23-year-old woman and repeatedly beat and sexually assaulted her.

Neither victim can be identified under a court order. In their victim impact statements, they detailed the long list of injuries they suffered and the emotional impacts of the crimes.

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Provincial court judge Tim Killeen said the severity of the attacks warrant a long prison sentence, but he also took into account Hudson’s troubled background that included abuse and neglect as a child.

With files from the Canadian Press