'Women should feel safe': Parking garage harasser sentenced

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A man who menaced women at a downtown Moncton parking garage earlier this year was released from jail Friday.

Benjamin Joseph Allan Blanchard, 20, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty last month to two counts of criminal harassment. He admitted he engaged in threatening conduct toward Ashlyn Sturgeon and Kellie Smith, causing them to fear for their safety on May 23.

Blanchard has been in jail since then. He was on a conditional sentence order for similar offences and served the remainder of that in jail, plus the equivalent of five months in remand.

The Crown and defence made a joint recommendation for five months jail, considered served, which the judge accepted, along with three years of probation with orders to not contact his victims, be assessed for drug addiction and mental health issues and an order to take anger-management.

Blanchard was also banned from having firearms for life.

The only comment the offender made to the court during the sentencing was to say he works as a military corporal and needs a note from the court saying he can’t have a rifle. Judge Luc Labonté immediately dismissed the claim as untrue.

Prosecutor Clemence Talbot told the court Blanchard harassed Smith at 4:30 p.m. on May 23 and Surgeon an hour later. Both women were going to the parking garage on Church Street when the offender followed them.

Talbot said Smith was closely followed into the structure’s stairwell and she made multiple attempts to let Blanchard go ahead of her, including slowing down so he would move on. But he persisted and kept following her so that she eventually called out to another woman under the pretense she knew her. Blanchard continued to follow, watch and harass but she eventually got to her car and left.

He called out to Sturgeon an hour later and followed her, despite her attempts to ignore him. Blanchard asked her how old she was, asked to see her ID, and when she jumped in her car he tried to get into the backseat but she had locked the doors.

Talbot said the offender then stood in front of her car, only moving slightly after she repeatedly honked the horn, allowing her to drive off.

Both women reported the incident to police and Blanchard was identified and arrested.

Defence lawyer Nelson Peters said Blanchard claimed he was aggressively panhandling, but acknowleges that he scared the women. Peters said Blanchard is not educated, has mental health troubles and was intoxicated when he harassed the women.

The prosecutor said those women were alone and women walking alone have the right to feel safe.

“Feeling insecure in the street when you are a woman is too common and this should not be tolerated,” said Talbot.

To Blanchard’s claim he was panhandling, the judge said that’s not how he came across to his victims.

“To those ladies that day, that certainly was not what they felt,” said Labonté. “You can’t behave that way. Your actions would have affected anyone, but as stated by the Crown, particularly a woman in those circumstances.”