Gordie Bishop has been exiled from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador as part of his sentence for an incident where he dragged a police officer behind his car, according to news reports.
Bishop was convicted in February of a number of charges, including break and enter, aggravated assault and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm relating to an incident in January 2015.
According to multiple news reports, he was sentenced on Tuesday to time served while awaiting trial as well as one year probation – during which time he is not allowed to stay in the province.
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According to court documents, he broke into a St. John’s pub early in the morning on January 2, 2015, damaging an ATM and triggering an alarm. When police arrived on the scene, he escaped the building and got into a car. An officer told him to stop and tried to take his keys, but instead of stopping, he accelerated, with the officer half in the car with her feet on the pavement. When she realized he wasn’t going to stop, she released her grip on the door and tried to roll on the pavement, hitting her head and sustaining injuries.
Later that day, he also hit an unmarked police car with his car, injuring another officer inside.
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Bishop’s father told The Telegram that his son would likely move to Fort McMurray.
“A bit much”
Banishment orders are highly unusual and “very problematic,” said Allan Manson, professor emeritus of law at Queen’s University. In the 19th century before the Criminal Code, he said, local judges might have told a person that he or she would be sentenced if they didn’t leave town. “Those were like the Old West days. Get out of town and don’t come back!”
Nowadays, a person might be required to stay away from a specific person or an address, but it’s rare for an order to go beyond that, he said. He doesn’t believe that a big geographic ban would be upheld if appealed.
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It could potentially be seen as a violation of a person’s Charter rights to freedom of association and freedom of mobility, he said, as well as the fact that it is often deemed punitive to ban someone from where they live. It’s also arbitrary to ban someone from a large area, particularly an entire province.
It’s “a bit much” to ban somebody from all of Newfoundland and Labrador, he said.
“Other than keeping a person away from associates and environments, it’s hard to say that this is a rehabilitative measure.”
However, if it’s not appealed, it could stand, he said. “Even if legality is pushed a little bit, if the particular accused agrees to it, so be it.”
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