 Cathleen Lavoie sits in her wheelchair at Laurier Manor Tuesday night in Ottawa. Lavoie is in her wheelchair because her ex shot her in the neck. (TONY CALDWELL/QMI Agency)
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OTTAWA -- A single gun shot sentenced two people — each to their own prison.
Alvin Persaud got 10 years Tuesday for shooting his girlfriend, Cathleen Lavoie, in the neck while in the throes of a jealous rage.
Lavoie is paralysed, torn from her home and children and trapped in a nursing home at just age 43. She was late for the sentencing of the man who tried to kill her because Para Transpo was running an hour late.
“I feel like I am both a victim of violence and a victim of society, lost in the cracks, going crazy in a nursing home,” she told Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny. “Any life as it was is totally gone. I’ve lost my home, my children, my life.
“I feel like a fool to have dated this person and feel guilty for ... having introduced this person into the lives of my children.”
Persaud, 29, pleaded guilty last week to attempted murder and using a firearm — the Glock semi-automatic pistol he used for target practice before turning it on his girlfriend of five months in her Marlin Pvt. home on July 22, 2008.
Her children, now 6, 14 and 16, saw their mother covered with her own blood.
The court heard that Persaud — who blames alcoholism for his actions — was angry and irrational, fighting with Lavoie about male singers she liked and an ex-boyfriend he accuse her of still loving.
Persaud’s sentence of 10 years will be less the standard two-for-one credit for the 16 months he’s already spent in jail awaiting trial. He was also banned from owning guns for life and ordered to submit a sample to the DNA database.
“I sincerely regret my actions that night and for what it’s worth I am truly sorry,” said the clean-cut and well-dressed Persaud in a loud, clear voice.
Ratushny called the time a “significant sentence for a significant tragedy” and urged Persaud to seek help for his addiction.
The judge spoke mostly to Lavoie, who sat before her, a tiny figure in her wheelchair, her long dark hair in a single braid.
“The criminal justice system has to focus on the consequences of the event,” Ratushny said before urging Lavoie to call on her “rock of strength” on the long road ahead.
Because, as the judge concluded, “nothing we can do will change anything.”
megan.gillis@sunmedia.ca
