Alex Kurial/Local Journalism Initiative

A Lambton County man who plead guilty to a pair of assaults on his former partner has received 20 months probation as punishment.

This despite the Crown suggesting a harsher penalty was needed to address the behaviour in question.

Sarnia Court heard about two incidents that took place nearly a year apart at Cody Pietz’s Mar. 16 appearance.

The first recorded instance of abuse was July 2019 when the couple lived in Corunna. An argument at home led to Pietz putting his hand around his fiancée’s neck with enough force to cause breathing difficulty and leave red marks.

The woman didn’t report the incident at the time, later explaining she was scared.
By July 2020 the couple was living in Petrolia, but Pietz’s abusive behavior continued.

During an Independence Day fight the woman pulled out her phone to record Pietz. This angered him further, and while trying to grab the phone he ripped out some of her hair. Pietz then shoved the woman to the ground where she hit her head on a closet door.

The blow was bad enough to send the woman to the Petrolia hospital, where she was treated for concussion symptoms. Court heard she missed several weeks of work with the head injury.

“Given the fact that violence occurred in the context of an intimate partner relationship and that injuries were sustained… I’m of the view that something more than a period of probation is required in these circumstances,” says Crown Attorney Nila Mulpuru.
Mulpuru asked for a 30 day conditional sentence which Pietz could serve at home, followed by 18 months of probation.

But Justice Deborah Austin decided a suspended sentence with a lengthier probation was more appropriate.

“That in my view is a less complicated way of imposing a liberty restriction that is intended to be part of the consequence here,” she says.

A suspended sentence allows Pietz to be out of the house anytime aside from his curfew hours. The conditional sentence would have required him to be home at all times except for going to and from work.

Pietz is under an 8 pm to 6 am curfew for the first 45 days of his sentence. He’s also ordered to take counselling for intimate partner violence and must not contact and stay away from his ex-partner.

He’ll also be banned from possessing weapons, except he may continue hunting with a crossbow.