Photo: Colin Dacre

A Penticton man was sentenced to 45 days in prison Monday for kicking a downed police officer in the face during the struggle for his arrest.

Jakob Holmes, 24, pleaded guilty to assaulting a peace officer and resisting arrest in connection to an incident on April 22, 2017.

Police were originally called to the parking lot of the Penticton Value Village that afternoon for a report of a male breaking into vehicles.

A responding female police officer spotted Holmes and tried to arrest him, who became belligerent. During the struggle, the officer was knocked onto her back, and Holmes kicked her in the face.

“She (the officer) then remembers standing up and holding her face as her nose was bleeding,” Crown prosecutor Andrew Vandersluys told the courtroom Monday.

Another arriving officer then took over and cuffed Holmes.

Vandersluys argued for a 60-90 day jail term and one year of probation, noting the assault on the police officer “was not minimal” and resulted in significant injuries.

Defence lawyer Paul Varga said his client was black-out drunk during the incident and does not remember the assault.

“He’s attending AA,” he said, asking the judge to order counselling “in order to try to get a handle on this substance abuse.”

Holmes, who looked well below his age of 24 in a dress shirt and tie, told the judge he was sorry for the assault.

“What I’ve done, is outrageous. I feel bad,” he said.

He said he knows he needs treatment, but has struggled to stay sober even while attending AA.

Holmes penned a pair of apology letters to the officer he kicked, and had just one previous criminal conviction for a break and enter in Ontario.

Judge Gregory Koturbash wrestled out loud with sending Holmes to prison for a straight jail term, or allowing him to serve it on the weekends to maintain employment as a dishwasher.

While Koturbash was nearing the end his original sentence of a straight-45 days in prison, with Holmes showing visible but silent panic, the judge backtracked.

“I have concerns about you going into the institution, for you in particular I don’t see it being a place where things would go very well for you,” Koturbash said, asking Holmes if there was any way possible he could stay off the liquor.

“I can, it’s going to be a big — quite the event for me. I can do it,” he replied.

Then, as Koturbash was about to, in his words, give Holmes “a chance” with a weekends-only jail term, Holmes spontaneously told the judge he had already been arrested for drinking alcohol while out on bail.

Crown and defence counsel were both confused and unaware of any new charges against Holmes, but that remark was enough for Koturbash to slam closed the door on the weekend jail term.

“I appreciate your candor sir, but I think, as much as I’d like to do it intermittently, it's just going to turn into a mess and we are going to be back here,” he said.

Upon release, Holmes will be on probation for one year.