Pleas may be coming for assault charges

By Delon Shurtz on March 4, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A 29-year-old man who was expected to resolve his assault charges on at least four occasions over the past for weeks, may finally enter pleas later this month.
Wade Allan Cross Child, who faces single counts of aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon, was expected to resolve the charges in Lethbridge provincial court on Feb. 10, but his lawyer didn’t know where he was. She told court in January she planned to resolve the charges but first needed to “re-establish contact” with her client.
The matter was adjourned to Feb. 17 when Cross Child again was a no-show for court, but turned up at his lawyer’s office later in the day.
The case was adjourned again to Feb. 24, but Lethbridge lawyer Ingrid Hess told court she hadn’t been able to track down her client that day, and said he likely forgot about his court appearance.
Hess pointed out that even though Cross Child lives on the street and suffers from various health issues, including a previous head injury, his grandmother would try to get him to court the following week.
Finally, during Wednesday’s court hearing, Cross Child appeared in court online through video conferencing from his lawyer’s office. Hess told court she had hoped to dispose of the charges during Wednesday’s hearing, but asked to adjourn the matter for another week.
Cross Child’s charges stem from an incident at the former drug supervised consumption site a year ago.
Just after 6 a.m. March 3, 2020 police responded to a report that a security guard working at the SCS in the 1000 block of 1 Avenue South had been assaulted by a client.
The guard approached a man in the waiting area after he began to inject himself, but because drug use is not permitted in that area, the security guard told the man to stop and go into the supervised area.
The man became upset and shot the contents of the syringe – blood and other fluids – into the security guard’s face before he was taken into custody.
The 23-year-old guard was treated at Chinook Regional Hospital and released, but required ongoing treatment afterward as a result of the exposure.
Police arrested the suspect at the SCS and seized the syringe.
The matter has been adjourned more than two dozen times since Cross Child’s arrest, in part to allow him to complete a drug treatment program. His case was also interrupted after he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for breaching conditions of his release on the assault charges.

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