David White, 58, admitted to assaulting someone and breaking and entering
A man from Ottawa pleaded guilty in a case where he was accused of breaking into a third-floor apartment and making a young girl jump 10 meters off a balcony.
David White, 58, pleaded guilty to assault, resisting arrest, and breaking and entering with the intent to commit an indictable offense in the Ontario Court of Justice on Friday.
White was given a sentence of two years of probation and nine months of house arrest. This wasn’t enough for the girl’s family.
Zeinab Mohamed, whose daughter Sumaya was badly hurt, said, “I feel like my daughter was wronged.” “I feel like the system is really unfair to us,” she said.
Mohamed said that the sentence makes her feel like the justice system is unfair to people of color.
“I feel like I don’t belong here,” she said. “I’m not from Canada.”
Had recently taken cocain
The court heard that White broke into an Ottawa Community Housing building on Cooper Street in the downtown area of the city on June 20, 2021.
He had recently used cocaine, and his ex-girlfriend had stopped him from entering another apartment in the same building. He went up to the third floor instead, where Mohamed and her daughter lived.
Mohamed, who uses a wheelchair, was bringing food to her neighbors when White pushed past her and forced himself into her apartment.
White blocked the apartment door from the inside and told 12-year-old Sumaya that everyone in the building, including her mother, was dead.
Sumaya told her mother that she was hiding in the bathroom, but she soon found out that none of the doors in the apartment were locked. In a moment of panic, she ran past the man and jumped about 10 meters down from the balcony.
Sumaya lived, but the bones in her ankle, leg, and back were broken. After that, she had to wear a back brace and have pins in her legs to keep the bones from breaking.
“Her life has changed in every way
The Crown attorney said the family’s impact statement was one of the saddest he’s ever heard.
In it, Sumaya’s family talked about the serious injuries and trauma she got when she jumped off the balcony.
In an interview with CBC, Sumaya’s aunt, Samsam Ahmed, said that this crime “dimmed the light in that home.” “Deep inside my niece, there is something that isn’t there any more.”
Ahmed said that Sumaya’s physical injuries from the incident cost her a lot.
“Her life has changed in every way,” Ahmed said.
As for White, the court heard that he had been abused as a child, which led to his drinking and drug use. Shortly before he did the wrong thing, his son died of an overdose.
Doctors think he was having a mental health crisis at the time and that he regrets what he did very much.
White apologized directly to the family in court on Friday and said he wanted to make things right by pleading guilty.
Lawyers say a plea deal is the best way to move forward
The Crown and White’s lawyer both said that they thought a plea deal was the best way to move forward.
One of the most important points was that White did the crime in 2021, which was one year before a law was passed that holds people responsible for crimes they do while extremely drunk.
So, White’s lawyer said that if the case went to court, White would probably be found not guilty.
But that argument doesn’t make sense to the family.
“We are still suffering,” said Mohamed.