The man who attacked a pizza delivery driver with a box cutter in Penticton is spending the next year in jail.
Dayne Douglas Jones, 28, pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon and willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer.
Jones attacked co-owner of Canadian 2 for 1 Pizza, Brian Booth, with a box cutter at Jones’ Westminster Avenue residence on Dec. 14, 2015.
The attack resulted in 30 stitches to Booth’s face and head.
Jones had ordered a pizza and after the initial delivery driver arrived he was unable to locate his wallet. While intoxicated, Jones later called Canadian 2 for 1 threatening the staff if his pizza was not delivered.
Booth arrived at Jones’ residence and an altercation occurred.
Police had to use force when they arrived at Jones’ residence to arrest him after he resisted.
In his statement to police, Jones said the attack with the box cutter was a reflexive action because he thought he was going to be attacked by Booth. Sinclair noted there is no evidence of what exactly occurred between the two men.
“Little turns on that. The accused in his intoxicated state chided the police for bringing their guns to a knife fight. Likewise I chide the accused for bringing a knife to what should have been, at worst, a fistfight, or what should have been nothing at all other than a transaction involving a pizza,” Sinclair said in his decision, handed down on March 3.
Sinclair said he had to grapple with balancing the fact that Jones had “basically rehabilitated himself” in the time since the incident — successfully attending counselling and remaining drug and alcohol free since the offence — and the severity of the attack.
“On the other hand what occurred on the evening of Dec. 14, 2015 was, in a word, brutal,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair echoed the words of the BC Court of Appeal, noting that the courts should protect convenience store clerks who work alone late at night.
“The same logic, in my view, applies to pizza delivery persons. Whether they be paid by the hour or management, they deliver pizza alone, at night, to residences with no idea what or who they might encounter,” Sinclair said.
Jones was sentenced to one year imprisonment and 18 months probation.