A woman convicted in connection to incidents involving an intellectually disabled woman in her care will be serving her sentence in the community.
Ashley Marie Johnson was sentenced to four months conditional sentence order, followed by a year of probation and fines of $250.
Johnson must also not apply for employment where care of individuals is involved. She is also not allowed to contact the parents or the victim.
Judge R.D. Maher also ordered a weapons prohibition, DNA order and victim surcharge in his decision presented in Queen's Bench court in Battleford Friday.
Johnson, who was in court Friday, was convicted following trial of two counts of assault and one count of administering a noxious substance to aggrieve or annoy to Sylene Piatt at a care home in North Battleford.
The two assaults were in connection to incidents where Johnson was alleged to have placed peppercorns in Piatt's mouth and lemon juice on her face. The noxious substance charge was in connection to allegations that Johnson placed hand sanitizer on Piatt's eyes and face.
Sentencing submissions were made in on June 17. At the time, the Crown called for nothing less than a CSO, while the defence had called for a suspended sentence and probation.
In his oral decision, Judge Maher imposed the conditional sentence, saying that best met the sentencing principles of denunciation and deterrence. He pointed to the fact Johnson had been in a position of trust in making that decision.
Sylene's parents, Roger and Collene Piatt, were in court to hear the sentence. They told reporters afterwards the sentence was in line with what they expected in conversations with the Crown.
Their main concern was with respect to how long the case had taken to get through the courts, with the allegations dating back to March 26, 2011.
Roger talked about the long ordeal they had to endure of seeing the case move slowly through the justice system.
"The justice system took a long time to get through this, and that actually makes victims of the people who were already victimized once before. So if anything, I would encourage the justice system to find ways to make this a little faster to get through these things."
Collene echoed that sentiment. "It's been hard, but I'm glad it's done, and we're happy with the fact that they know who she is and it won't happen again, and she won't be able to do this again to somebody else."
She also expressed hope that they can all move on from this. "Our daughter is safe now and she's happy, and that helps."
