Court File and Parties
COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO
Laskin, Gillese and Rouleau JJ.A.
BETWEEN
Her Majesty the Queen
Respondent
and
Steven Charles Martin
Appellant
Counsel:
William J. Parker, Q.C., for the appellant
Deborah Calderwood, for the respondent
Heard and released orally: January 14, 2009
On appeal from the sentence imposed by Justice S.S. Seppi of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting with a jury, on August 19, 2005.
ENDORSEMENT
Endorsement
1Mr. Martin was convicted of 14 offences of domestic abuse against his wife. He was sentenced to 8½ years in custody in addition to 22 months credit for pre-trial custody, an effective sentence of 10 years 4 months. He appeals his sentence.
2Mr. Martin’s main submission is that the sentence is beyond an acceptable range and that an appropriate range is 5 to 7 years. Mr. Martin is now 38 years old and we acknowledge that for him a 10-year sentence is a substantial sentence. Nonetheless, in the absence of any significant mitigating considerations and the presence of several aggravating considerations, we are not persuaded that the sentence he received is unfit. These aggravating considerations include the following.
The offences amounted to eight discrete incidents of spousal abuse over an extended period of time.
Many of the offences were characterized by excessive violence.
Mr. Martin committed the first incident, an incident of choking, which was life threatening, when he was on probation for a previous assault against his wife.
One of these violent incidents was witnessed by the children, and indeed, the daughter intervened to protect her mother from further harm.
The final incident occurred while Mr. Martin was on bail. Not only did he breach the no-contact provision of his bail, he cut the phone line before breaking and entering into the home.
3Overall, as the trial judge said, Mr. Martin’s conduct “emotionally and physically battered his wife into submission.” That conduct justified the sentence Mr. Martin received.
Disposition
4Accordingly, although leave to appeal sentence is granted, the sentence appeal is dismissed.
“John Laskin J.A.”
“Eileen E. Gillese J.A.”
“Paul Rouleau J.A.”
