A man serving time for playing a key role in a near-fatal swarming attack has been put on statutory release with conditions.
Hayden Lee Alwood, 23, is serving slightly more than three years for acting as the "muscle" in the notorious January 2013 attack which left the victim with a brain injury and ongoing anxiety. Co-accused Mercedes Rae Jewett, who was released on day parole in May 2017, was found to be the ringleader.
The victim was was one of two suspected of sneaking into Jewett's bedroom and sexually assaulting her and a friend while they slept, an allegation a judge found completely baseless.
The court found Alwood pulled the victim's pants down before he was sodomized several times with a mop handle. Others then repeatedly kicked the victim in the head and hit him with a frying pan. Then he was dragged, unconscious, and dumped in a snow bank behind an apartment building in the 1600 block of Juniper Street near Connaught Hill Park.
Police were called and the assailants told police they had located the victim by happenstance. But a cellphone showing a video of the assault was seized.
Alwood's previous application for parole was rejected in January after he punched a door on the way out of the room during a conflict with an inmate over a computer.
He will be subject to a handful of conditions while out on parole. They include participating in one-on-one counselling to "address historical childhood trauma, mental health and reintegration stressors."
Because he currently has no family or social support network on Vancouver Island, he may be referred to the community adult mentoring and support program upon release to provide positive support in the community.
Statutory release differs from parole in that the former is mandated by law and begins once two thirds of a sentence is completed while the latter is discretionary. Alwood's sentence ends in mid-July 2019. The Parole Board of Canada decision was issued in early June.
