Local man avoids jail after successful court appeal

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Two years after being sentenced to four years in prison for the savage beating of another man, Nathan Tenthorey was fined instead after winning a court appeal and then pleading guilty last week to a misdemeanor.

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The Lakeshore man pleaded guilty September 17 in Superior Court of Justice to simple battery and was sentenced by Judge Bruce Thomas to a $ 2,500 fine and sentenced to three years of probation.

The sentence came more than five years after a violent incident at a house party following a brief encounter at the Sunsplash Festival beer tent in Belle River. At the end of a 2019 Superior Court trial, a jury convicted Tenthorey, 28 at the time, of aggravated battery. He was described as having used the victim’s head as a soccer ball, repeatedly kicking it when it was on the ground.

The defense filed an appeal from both the guilty verdict and the sentence. Earlier this year, the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

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Attorney James Lockyer of the Toronto firm Lockyer Posner Craig said the superior court ruled that the trial judge was wrong in failing to instruct the jury that he could also consider convicting Tenthorey on the misdemeanor charge of battery causing harm. bodily, which would have opened a lower path. sentence range.

A new trial was ordered on the aggravated assault charge. However, last week, Tenthorey pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor assault. In addition to a fine and probation, he was imposed a 10-year gun ban, ordered to submit a blood sample to a police DNA database used to help solve crimes, and banned. communicate with the victim or his family during the trial period. period.

When asked why his client had pleaded guilty rather than fighting the original charge in a second trial, Lockyer told Star Friday that after so long since the original incident, “everyone” just wanted the case. will finish.

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“This is a really good result,” said Windsor attorney Frank Miller, who defended Tenthorey in the original trial.

At the 2016 house party, the victim was hit on the floor and then repeatedly kicked. Hours earlier, there was a random crash involving Tenthorey’s girlfriend inside a crowded beer tent. The three met again at the private party.

The defense had argued during the trial that the victim was so beaten at the party that, perhaps, she had no idea who her assailant was. The jury believed the victim and the accusation.

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