After pleading guilty to three counts of arson on Wednesday in a Gore Bay courtroom, Clinton Gordon Haggart, a former Sudbury resident, is on his way back to the Nickel City.
That’s because as part of his sentencing, Haggart is no longer allowed to live in the Manitoulin Island community.
As reported by Alicia McCutcheon in the Manitoulin Expositor, the 33-year-old pleaded guilty to three of five arson counts (two were dropped) for setting fire to his own home on June 13, 2014, his mother-in-law’s home on July 13, 2014, and the building that formerly housed the Little Current curling club on Aug. 8, 2014.
Because he spent 28 months in custody (for which he was credited 1.5 days for every day served, equalling 42 months) while his case worked its way through the system, Haggart walked out of court a free man. He’ll be on probation for the next two years, can’t contact any of the witnesses who testified at trial, must submit a DNA sample and must take part in counselling.
He’s also banned from using or owning a firearm for life. The sentence was a joint submission by the Crown and the defence.
Because of the fear his crimes caused residents of Little Current, Haggart is also banned from stepping foot in the community for a year.
It’s not Haggart’s first brush with the law. The Expositor reports that Justice Robert Del Frate laughed “incredulously” while reading from the man’s extensive criminal record for crimes including break-ins, vandalism and rape after he assaulted a woman on the banks of Wahnapitae Lake in 2008 and left her stranded dozens of kilometres from civilization.
Not long after that conviction, he suffered a jail-house beating that left him with a ruptured spleen.
