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THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2013 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS BURNING RUBBER Black smoke billows out of the burning wreckage of a truck on Highway 97C about 20 minutes southeast of Merritt on July 19. Crews from the Merritt-area Wildfire Management Branch were the first responders to the scene near Kidd Lake, but didn’t take action on the fire. Duty officer Simon Cisco said the crews don’t deal with truck fires because they don’t have proper breathing apparatuses or specific training. Cisco said the responders determined the fire wasn’t a threat to becoming a forest fire and monitored it for about half an hour before leaving the scene. The truck was left in care of its driver. Jayson Charters/Submitted
GOLF SEASON IN FULL SWING Get all the golf goods from around the Nicola Valley in today’s Herald Sports section on pages 21 and 22. Find out how Merritt golfer Roger Sloan is faring in the Canadian Open in Oakville, Ont., and catch up with the Cents before the hockey club’s 2013 fundraising golf tournament at Sagebrush next month.
Woman gets 21 days in jail for stabbing By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
A woman charged with assault with a weapon and two breaches of undertaking will be spending her weekends behind bars after she was sentenced to 21 days in jail last Tuesday in Merritt provincial court. Tracey Wilkinson pled guilty to all charges stemming from a February stabbing in a home on Houston Street. Judge Wilfred Klinger gave Wilkinson a total of 21 days in jail, which can be served intermittently on consecutive weekends between 8 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m.
Sunday at the Merritt RCMP detachment cells. Wilkinson was also sentenced to 18 months’ probation. She also received a victim surcharge of $150. Prosecutor Sarah Firestone said on Feb. 3 at 12:15 a.m., police were called to 1252 Houston St. — Wilkinson’s grandmother’s house — where Wilkinson had gotten into an altercation with an acquaintance of hers. Both women had been drinking. The fight escalated but was broken up by a third party. Wilkinson then left the room but returned with two
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Firestone said Wilkinson admitted to police she had done cocaine earlier in the day and had been drinking a lot of alcohol. Defence counsel Fred Kaatz did not dispute the circumstances, but added that the woman who was stabbed swore at police, was highly intoxicated and was eventually arrested for assaulting a police officer. Kaatz said both parties were drunk, have had problems with each other in the past and what started out as play-slapping — according to one witness — escalated into the fight. He also said Wilkinson cannot remember
the incident. Wilkinson was arrested for breach of undertaking twice in the months following the stabbing. Police responded to a disturbance outside the same home where the stabbing took place, and where she’d been staying, on the morning of March 23. Wilkinson allegedly got into an altercation with a man and police located her and a man in the middle of the street in the 2600 block of Priest Avenue. Police noted Wilkinson showed signs that she’d been drinking as she had slurred speech and an odour of
liquor on her breath. Court heard she was taken back to her grandmother’s house to see if she was still welcome there, which she was not, and arrested for the breach. On June 14 at 1:54 a.m., police responded to an altercation at the same house involving Wilkinson, another woman and Wilkinson’s grandmother, who called police saying Wilkinson refused to leave. She eventually left the house and police located her, noting liquor on her breath in this instance as well.
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knives in her hands — one of which Firestone described as a knife with a V-shaped blade. Wilkinson attacked the woman she’d been fighting with, stabbing her twice in the neck and once in the arm. A witness detained Wilkinson, stopping her from continuing the attack. Both Wilkinson and the woman she stabbed were very intoxicated. Police arrested Wilkinson and located the woman who was stabbed. She was taken to hospital and received stitches for her wounds, Firestone said.
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