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CALGARY -- Abusing his wife, her dog, and a Calgary police officer should land a city man up to 10 months in jail, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
And Crown lawyer Gord Haight said the attack on Denise Head’s pet Corgi, Buddy, should land Bradley Kim Bergman the harshest penalty.
Haight suggested a three- to four-month jail term for the animal cruelty charge would be warranted for Bergman’s attack on the animal last March 1.
He told provincial court Judge Sean Dunnigan assaults by Bergman on Head and an officer who responded to her emergency call, justified additional two- to three-month jail terms.
But defence lawyer Patrick Flynn said Bergman is a different person from the one who tied a noose so tightly around Buddy’s neck police had to cut it off to restore the canine’s breathing.
Flynn said Bergman, 56, has suffered from depression for much of his life, but has only recently been properly diagnosed and medicated.
“We have an individual who was misdiagnosed for many years of his life who’s now getting proper treatment,” Flynn said.
“We have to keep him on the medication ... for his own good and everyone else in the community,” the lawyer said.
But Flynn, who proposed a two- to three-month sentence, received a sharp rebuke from Dunnigan when he suggested the harm done to the dog wasn’t as serious as it appeared.
“We need to look at what actually happened to that animal,” Flynn said.
“That dog would not know a noose from a necktie or a collar,” he said, as animal rights protesters in the courtroom mumbled their disagreement.
Dunnigan said Buddy would have been aware of the threat to his safety.
“A rope that’s tied so tight that people can’t get their finger between it (and the dog’s neck) ... certainly the dog is aware of that,” he said.
Bergman, too, tried to minimize the dog’s suffering.
“The noose that I put on the dog was intended for me ... the dog was under minimal stress, it was breathing on it’s own,” he said, before being interrupted by the judge.
“You already heard me say to Mr. Flynn ‘don’t go there’ I view this as serious what you did to that dog,” Dunnigan said.
Bergman was mad at Buddy for being sick and throwing up.
A date for Dunnigan’s sentencing report will be set on Friday.