BCC inmate gets 60 days for hospital uproar following three months solitary confinement

An inmate at Iqaluit’s Baffin Correctional Centre pleaded guilty July 31 before Justice Robert Kilpatrick at the Nunavut Court of Justice after uttering threats and mischief this past February after being treated at Qikiqtani General Hospital for an attempted suicide.

Willie Ishulutak, 33, who is also awaiting a preliminary hearing for arson in connection with last November’s fire at BCC, will serve 60 days.

Crown prosecutor Barry McLaren and defense lawyer Stephen Shabala agreed to a 60-day sentence because of the “fair amount of stress” that Ishulatak suffered last February, Shabala said.

On Feb. 13, Ishulutak started harming himself after being held in solitary confinement for three consecutive months. Correctional centre authorities had put him into solitary for 23 hours a day, starting November 2012.

After Ishulutak was rushed to the isolation ward at the Qikiqtani hospital, staff gave him a sedative.

When he woke up, he didn’t realize where he was, “and basically, at that time, he became very fearful,” Shabala said.

After Ishulutak began damaging walls and breaking glass, hospital staff called the police.

Although Ishulutak had originally been charged with assaulting a police officer, lawyers agreed to the lesser charge of uttering threats against a police officer, “basically [because] his psychological nature wasn’t stable at the time,” Shabala said.

On Nov. 12, 2012, Ishulutak was held at the Iqaluit RCMP detachment after a fire had started inside BCC. Sixteen days after that, on Nov. 28, he began a three-month stint in solitary confinement.

Ishulutak pleaded guilty March 26 to 11 charges, including theft, uttering threats and possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking.

He received 14 months jail time for those convictions.