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A Brantford man failed to persuade a “tired” judge with his apology after pleading guilty to robbing two pharmacies while brandishing a handgun.
Gethin B. Edward of the Ontario Court of Justice said in a withering judgement that he was not impressed with Kevin Couture’s apology and had heard enough apologies that did little to mend the harm caused.
“I’m tired of this same old song and dance,” the exasperated justice told the court while issuing his ruling.
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“Every drug addict that comes before me, after they come down from their high: ‘Oh, your honour, I’m so sorry I beat the snot out of that person.’ ‘I’m so sorry I drove into that person.’ ‘I’m so sorry I robbed those two pharmacies with a handgun,’” Edward said, per the Brantford Expositor.
“It doesn’t translate into any kind of help for those hard-working individuals in the pharmacies who put up with that crap. I’m tired of it,” he added.
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Couture said his actions were “not like me” when he robbed a pharmacy on for drugs Oct. 18, 2022, and another one ten days later. He was tracked and arrested with a loaded handgun after making off with some drugs in his second robbery.
The Crown and defence worked out a deal that would put Couture away for eight years, according to the Expositor.
“He’s had a particularly difficult life,” his lawyer Dale Henderson said. Couture had “a disruptive childhood, witness to abuse and then running afoul of an oxy addiction as the result of an injury,” Henderson said.
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Couture had no past criminal history but had started taking suboxone, an oral medication taken as a treatment for opioid addiction. He had stopped taking the drug after being incarcerated.
“I’m sorry,” Couture said in court. “I really apologize for everything, and I really feel sorry for what I did to those people.”
He pleaded guilty to robbery with a firearm, two counts of wearing a disguise with intent to commit a crime, unauthorized possession of a firearm, using a firearm while committing an indictable offence, and assault by act of gesture. Ten other charges were withdrawn.
The judge accepted the deal but gave him three years time served for the 585 days served in jail, and enhanced credit due to overcrowding at the jail and for extensive lock-downs. He will serve an additional five years, and be banned from owning weapons. Couture must also submit a DNA sample to the national offenders databank.
The Expositor reported on a separate case Edward presided, in which an apology took half a year off two counts of aggravated assault. “I deserve whatever you give me,” Cayne Hill, 26, who had attacked two women and left one with permanent damage to one eye, said.
“That’s a refreshing statement,” Edward noted. “That speaks more to your rehabilitation than anything I’ve heard so far.”
Hill was given a 12-month sentence, in addition to the nearly one year he’d served.
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