Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon said it was time for Jason Kirk Bone, 29, to “graduate” to the federal prison system after years of harsh warnings he wouldn’t heed from judges and Crown attorneys about more severe punishments if he didn’t address problems with anger, jealousy and severe drug and alcohol abuse.
“It is time for Jason Bone to grow up and face the music,” said McKinnon, who found there was a “substantial risk” Bone would re-offend given his lengthy and frequently violent criminal past, which includes multiple convictions for assault and uttering threats.
Crown prosecutors sought a long-term offender order after a jury found him guilty in June 2008 of aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and unlawful confinement following a particularly violent assault on the mother of his young son just before Christmas 2006.
Bone had just been released from jail for a prior assault on the woman when he went to her home on Dec. 21, 2006, and started drinking. After getting into a fight with one of his girlfriend’s male friends, Bone grabbed his girlfriend by the neck and plunged a fork into her eye socket, immediately below her left eye.
That attack was followed by another on Christmas Eve, where an intoxicated Bone assaulted his girlfriend over several hours with what McKinnon described as “spectacularly gratuitous” violence.
With his young son in the house, Bone grabbed his girlfriend by the hair and swung her around the room before repeatedly punching her in the head. He later armed himself with a steak knife and threatened to stab her to death, at one point holding the blade millimetres from her eye and threatening to cut out her eyes.
Throughout the assault, Bone repeatedly threatened to kill himself. His girlfriend was eventually able to get help after Bone left the house.
When his girlfriend returned home from the hospital on Christmas Day accompanied by police, she found the door to her home kicked in.
Two police officers were searching the home when Bone, who had rolled himself up in a carpet, leapt out and assaulted them. After the officers struck and pepper-sprayed Bone with little effect, he grabbed the holstered gun of one of the officers. Bone told the officer, “You better hope I don’t get your gun out, because you’ll be dead,” before biting the officer’s leg. Police were eventually able to subdue Bone and arrest him.
Once in jail, Bone bit a guard on the finger and threatened several others.
In addition to the nine years behind bars, Bone, who at one point during Monday’s hearing appeared to mock assistant Crown attorney Vivian-Lee Stewart, will also be subject to strict supervision and conditions for 10 years following his release.
With credit for time served, Bone has four years and nine months of his sentence left to serve.
aseymour@thecitizen.canwest.com