Judges have hands full dealing with alcohol-related crime

Kuujjuaq's court docket for Sept. 11 was typical: a long list of alcohol-fueled offences that reveal the horrific damage that booze creates in Nunavik.

Daniel Bédard, the Quebec court's travelling judge, gave Bobby Iggyyook, 28, a 34-month sentence on several charges related to an assault with a knife that he committed on a woman Aug. 21.

Iggyook, a Kuujjuaq resident who has a history of assault convictions, was still on an undertaking for a previous assault on the same woman.

"Even if you're a good person, there's a serious problem of alcohol abuse," Bédard told Iggyook.

Moses Iggyook, 35, of Kuujjuaq, had been taken into custody after a drinking spree during a weekend break from the Makitautik halfway house in Kangirsuk.

Iggyook, still serving a conditional sentence for assault, was sent back to jail for two months.

"I feel I don't have any support," Iggyook said of his most recent attempt to stay sober in Kuujjuaq.

Bédard sentenced a man from Salluit to 100 months of community work for assaulting a female relative.

The man, left with young children after the death of his girlfriend, attacked the woman when she attempted to take his youngest child into her care.

According to evidence presented in court, his sister found the man's youngest child, a baby, with a bloody lip and a bump on the head.

There was no information about the child's fate. The man was too intoxicated to remember anything, the court heard.

Two young Kuujjuaq men in their 30s, Willie Gadbois and William Hubloo, also appeared before Bédard in connection with an incident at Kuujjuaq's Iqqaqivik bar last week – a brawl involving a confrontation with visiting lawyers.

Gadbois and Hubloo face seven counts on two separate files and are scheduled to re-appear in court in October.

Earlier in the week, Danny Stevens, the former deputy director of operations at the Kativik Regional Police Force, pleaded guilty to an impaired driving charge dating back to June 2006.

He received a $2,000 fine and will not be able to serve as a police officer for three years.