Bipolar Seaforth man given house arrest for assaulting OPP sergeant and threatening two teenage girls
A Sarnia judge pointed out it’s rare to get a victim-impact statement from a police officer as altercations during arrests are almost considered part of the job.
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A Sarnia judge pointed out it’s rare to get a victim-impact statement from a police officer as altercations during arrests are almost considered part of the job.
But Jordan Yantzi decided to share in writing what happened after he was assaulted and injured by Timothy Urquhart during a fracas at a Grand Bend hotel about a year ago. Yantzi, a 39-year-old OPP sergeant with 17 years of experience, was taken to hospital in Exeter on Jan. 9, 2022, after he was punched in the head by Urquhart while trying to get him to leave the Colonial Hotel that Sunday morning.
Yantzi was diagnosed with a concussion and couldn’t work for two months as he battled symptoms including headaches, mood swings, irritability and dizziness, his statement said. But Yantzi also wrote the incident could have resulted in tragedy had an officer with less experience or with fewer physical capabilities been involved in the clash with Urquhart, a six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound bipolar man who refused to be evicted.
“I think that’s absolutely accurate. It’s really quite troubling,” Justice Mark Poland said as he imposed house arrest in what he called a perplexing sentencing due to Urquhart’s mental-health diagnosis. “The officer’s quite right that this really could have ended up with a very tragic outcome had it evolved differently.”
Three days after the hotel encounter, Urquhart, a 60-year-old Seaforth resident, went to a gas station in his Huron County hometown and asked two teenage girls working there if they knew him. He pulled up a story on his phone from The London Free Press detailing the Grand Bend hotel fracas, pointed to scrapes on his face as proof it involved him, and asked the girls, ages 15 and 16, if they were intimidated by him.
“It seemed that he wanted them to be,” assistant Crown attorney Suzanne LaSha said while reading an agreed statement of facts. “He took satisfaction knowing that they were afraid of him.”
Then he threatened to punch each of them in the head. Urquhart left, but when he returned the next day the 16-year-old locked the door and hit the panic alarm.
The younger of the two girls also wrote a victim-impact statement, which detailed how she lived in fear for months afterwards. Terrified to be alone, she slept in her mother’s bed, was walked to and from the bus stop, and asked for security cameras to be installed around their home.
“She, in short, was living her life in significant fear of Mr. Urquhart,” Poland said.
Urquhart pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm on the officer as well as three counts of uttering a threat to cause bodily harm linked to the hotel manager and the two teenage girls. Despite the guilty pleas and the documented mental and physical harm inflicted, Poland said sentencing Urquhart was difficult due to his lack of a criminal record and his mental-health illness.
“This is a very perplexing sentence,” he said.
Defence lawyer Katie Heathcote said her client was diagnosed as bipolar type 1.
“He experiences periods of mania where he behaves aggressively, becomes assertive and argumentative,” she said.
The mania is typically followed by low periods of depression, she added.
Urquhart initially pleaded guilty to the charges in the fall with a different defence lawyer, Justin Marchand from Toronto. The pair parted ways after the court ordered a pre-sentence report and Urquhart attempted to represent himself until learning the Crown was asking for jail time.
When he returned with Heathcote, a London lawyer, she asked for a suspended sentence and probation or, conceding that was a very low penalty, three months of house arrest.
“Frankly, it’s one of the most positive (pre-sentencing reports) I’ve had occasion to review in quite some time,” she said, which documented her client’s work with a psychiatrist and other mental-health professionals in Huron County. “This demonstrates to the court that his behaviour was not characteristic.”
“I’m sorry that this happened,” Urquhart said. “I just apologize to the court.”
LaSha countered with six months of house arrest. Poland settled on 75 days, 60 for assaulting the officer and another 15 days for threatening the girls. He added two years of probation banning him from contacting the four victims and going to the hotel or the gas station.
Poland said one of the most important factors in his decision was Urquhart’s drive for insight into why he behaved that way last year and reaching out for mental-health support in his community.
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