A 20-year-old Edmonton man will spend about another six months in custody at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre after being sentenced Friday afternoon for his role in an assault on another inmate at the jail.

Judge Donald Luther handed down the sentence to Joshua Saskiw after listening to a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Eric Marcoux and defence lawyer Gordon Coffin.

Reviewing the case with the court, Marcoux noted Saskiw was guilty of assault with a weapon and a prison breach in a matter going back to April. Another charge of assault with a weapon was stayed.

Saskiw was in jail on another matter (where charges were ultimately stayed) when the assault happened on April 17.

While defence maintains Saskiw simply walked out of his cell, the Crown believes he broke out of the cell into the common area, where he and others assaulted another inmate.

The two sides agreed though that in either case, Saskiw was under orders not to be out of his cell, due to court orders for him not to have any contact with some other inmates.

“Regardless, this is a prison breach,” Marcoux said of Saskiw leaving his cell.

When an inmate he was not to have contact with came into the common area, Saskiw and a couple of other inmates then used weighted socks in the assault, the court heard.

The victim of the assault was taken and treated at Whitehorse General Hospital, requiring stitches.

Coffin reviewed Saskiw’s short history in the Yukon, noting he arrived in the territory in mid-February to visit friends and family.

He had decided to stay longer than initially planned, but didn’t seek employment because he was only going to be in Whitehorse for a few weeks.

On Feb. 24, he was arrested on the other matter along with a number of others and remained in custody until April 29, when he was released.

It was just a day later, on April 30, when Saskiw went to pick up his belongings at the Whitehorse RCMP detachment that he was then arrested for the assault and jail breach.

Coffin then asked that Saskiw be given credit in this case for the time he was in jail on the other matter, noting that had charges been laid earlier on, he would have remained in custody and been eligible for credit.

“The circumstances are quite unusual,” Coffin argued.

Given that the original charges were stayed, he pointed out, Saskiw shouldn’t have been in custody at the time of the assault.

Questioned by Luther, Marcoux said the charges for the assault and jail breach weren’t laid until the end of April due to the time involved in obtaining video, reviewing notes and moving through the process to lay the charges.

While Marcoux stated his disagreement with giving credit to the full amount of time Saskiw was in jail on the other charges, he conceded that credit for time served could begin after April 17.

Coffin also pointed to the difficulty Saskiw has had in accessing programs at the jail because of the no-contact orders with the other inmates.

Coffin explained Saskiw is part of two groups that have no contact orders with one another. That has meant essentially putting each group in lockdown on a rotating basis to keep them away from one another.

Saskiw later told the court he is now getting better access to programs at the jail.

Coffin also said Saskiw has indicated he’s not sure why the assault happened; that it was not planned out.

He and others had the weighted socks as more of a defence weapon, which ended up being used as an offensive weapon.

Luther accepted the joint submission.

On the issue of time served, he noted that had the RCMP and jail officials been more diligent, Saskiw would not have been released for the one day and would have been eligible for credit.

He then credited Saskiw with 268 days served (calculating each day eligible as 1.5 days) and handed down a sentence of one year minus the 268 days already served for the assault followed by three months consecutive for the jail breach.

A mandatory DNA order and 10-year firearms ban was also ordered.

Luther then addressed Saskiw, pointing out that it’s important he learn from this. As Luther emphasized, Saskiw is a young man with his future ahead of him

As the court heard from Saskiw earlier, he plans to return to Alberta where he will work for his uncle.