A provincial court judge has admonished a Quesnel man whose rampage included spitting on a police officer, which required the Mountie to take an anti-viral cocktail.
“I’m sure if someone asked you if you’d rather be punched in the face or spat on — I’m included in this — you’d rather be punched,” Judge David St. Pierre told Brandon O’Flynn.
O’Flynn pleaded guilty on Oct. 20 to assault of a peace officer, two counts of mischief and three counts of breaches of court orders stemming from an incident in Kamloops on July 19.
Kamloops RCMP responded to a call about a woman in North Kamloops near the North Thompson River who was drunk and disorderly.
They found her passed out on a driveway on Chestnut Avenue.
A man was seen running from the scene. Following a foot chase, O’Flynn — who was under a no-contact order with the woman — was arrested.
At the squad car, he spat in the face of one of the arresting officers.
Crown prosecutor Adrienne Murphy called it a “very serious assault” that required the officer to undergo an anti-viral drug regimen to ensure his safety.
Once in police cells, O’Flynn repeatedly smashed the electronic-monitoring device around his ankle. When he was offered a phone at the detachment to call his lawyer, O’Flynn pulled the unit from the wall.
“He acknowledges he shouldn’t have been there and shouldn’t have been drinking,” said articling student Jeremy Knight, who represented O’Flynn.
St. Pierre sided with the defence submission of 28 days jail, or time already served.
O’Flynn will also serve one-year probation and pay $700 in victim-fine surcharges.
He was arrested in Quesnel earlier this month following a breach of his recognizance and had been jailed since.
Knight said O’Flynn has pleaded not guilty and a trial is set in January on a charge that he assaulted his girlfriend at a camping area outside Kamloops earlier this summer.
He is on bail on that charge.
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