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Jewett, Alwood sent to prison for swarming attacks

Saying he needed to emphasize the principles of denunciation and deterrence over rehabilitation, a Prince George provincial court judge sentenced the woman and man involved in "vicious, cowardly" swarming-style attacks against two youths to federal t
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Mercedes Jewett was sentenced to a further three years seven months Tuesday for her role in swarming-style attacks on two youths in January 2013.

Saying he needed to emphasize the principles of denunciation and deterrence over rehabilitation, a Prince George provincial court judge sentenced the woman and man involved in "vicious, cowardly" swarming-style attacks against two youths to federal time on Tuesday.

Mercedes Rae Jewett, 23, was sentenced to eight years in prison and Hayden Lee Alwood, 21, to six years. Less credit for time in custody prior to sentencing, Jewett has three years seven months left to serve and Alwood three years three months.

Jewett and Alwood had both pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault and unlawful confinement. Jewett had also pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm, and Alwood to assault with a weapon for the Jan. 7, 2013 incidents.

Both will also be listed on the national sex offender registry for the rest of their lives.

Defence counsel had been seeking time served followed by probation for the two while Crown argued for eight to 12 years for Jewett and six to nine years for Alwood.

In reaching his decision, provincial court judge Dan Weatherly recounted a series of events that began after Jewett had hosted a birthday party in the penthouse suite of a 1600-block Juniper Street apartment.

Once it was over, Jewett and a friend fell asleep in her bedroom. When they woke up the next morning, Jewett said she thought someone had snuck into the room pulled her pants down and molested her. Jewett said she wasn't sure if it was a dream, a product of her imagination or it actually happened and the friend said she had a similar dream.

Jewett texted a group of friends - all of them but Alwood were minors at the time - telling them someone had tried to rape her. They gathered at the apartment and linked an iPod found at the scene to one of the two 17-year-old boys who were to become their victims.

"In short order, and without a shred of credible evidence to support her claim, she concluded,erroneously I find, that she'd been sexually assaulted," Weatherly said. "Ms. Jewett then concocted a plan of revenge and manipulated her friends into helping her, convincing them that, in fact, she had been sexually assaulted."

Believing he had been called over to retrieve his iPod, he confronted by Jewett when he showed up. Outnumbered, he was punched in the jaw and pulled into the apartment and into a back room where Alwood hit him in the forehead with an empty vodka bottle and another attacker kicked him in the face.

He was able to convince the group he was not involved in touching Jewett and her friend and they concluded the assailant was his cousin, who in turn, was also lured back to the building. This time, the victim was punched and kicked to the floor where Alwood pulled his pants down and one of the other attackers sodomized him with a mop handle.

Now unconscious, he was dragged into the kitchen where cold water was poured on his face and his cheeks were slapped. He was kicked in the head and then the girl who claimed he molested her ran into the room and hit him twice over the head with a frying pan.

"The energy of the group began to subside," Weatherly said.

Alwood and two others then carried him outside and left him on a snow bank. They convinced the apartment manager's girlfriend to call 911 and when emergency personnel arrived, they pretended to be good Samaritans who simply found him there.

"By her own admission she was in charge right up to the end," Weatherly said of Jewett, yet she made no attempt to put an stop to the attack. Rather it ended at the urging of one of the others.

"If that had not happened, this vicious, cowardly swarming attack on the victim, [he] could easily have been killed," Weatherly said and added the victim was subsequently "dumped in the snow in a back alley near a dumpster, much like someone would dispose of household garbage."

Weatherly found Jewett lacked remorse, noting she told a forensic psychiatrist that if she had locked the apartment door, nothing would have happened. That Jewett still believes something happened shows she continues to have "a significant problem with insight," Weatherly said.

Weatherly also found Jewett "lacked emotion" when she apologized to the court. "It struck me as being rote," Weatherly said.

During the sentencing hearing, the court also heard Jewett had written letters to several sexual offenders and to convicted serial killers Cody Legebokoff and Robert Pickton while in custody.

"Why someone in Ms. Jewett's position would want to have contact with these people is beyond the comprehension of this court and is also very disturbing to this court," Weatherly said.

Weatherly accepted that Alwood was remorseful for his actions and agreed he was an immature follower but also knew Jewett's plan would probably lead to violence and his involvement was "very far from passive in nature."

The severity of their acts combined with the fact that both victims were minors prevented him from focussing predominantly on rehabilitation. He also disagreed with defence counsel's argument that the sentences for the attacks on the two victims should be concurrent rather than consecutive, saying that would amount to a "get out of jail free card" for the assault on the first victim.

Jewett was sentenced to seven years and Alwood to five years for the aggravated sexual assaults on the second victim and consecutive terms of one year, but concurrent to each other, on the convictions related to the attack and confinement on the first victim.

Jewett showed no emotion when her sentence was read out but once over, she was in tears and briefly hung her head and slumped on her seat in the prisoners' box. Alwood remained calm throughout.