Photo: RCMP, Facebook

Dayton McAlpine, left, and Tyler Newton.

Two notorious local criminals accused of a serious domestic assault in West Kelowna remain behind bars, for now.

Prolific offenders Dayton McAlpine and Tyler Newton are both charged with aggravated assault, use of an imitation firearm and assault with a weapon, in connection to an alleged assault on the morning of Dec. 31 in a home on West Kelowna's Cameron Road. The charges are labelled a “K-file” in the court records, which denotes domestic assault allegations.

While McAlpine was initially charged with assault causing bodily harm on Jan. 2, he evaded police for about a month, until his arrest on Feb. 1. His charges were then upgraded to the three he now faces.

Newton wasn't charged in the incident until May 19 though, and he first appeared in Kelowna court on the charges the following week.

Both men remain behind bars, after McAlpine lost his bail review hearing this Thursday. Newton is scheduled for a bail hearing next week.

Newton is well known in Kelowna for randomly stabbing and killing a stranger on Kelowna's No. 8 bus on the evening of Oct. 30, 2014. He was handed a seven-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2016, but with credit for time served, his sentence expired in December 2020.

Prior to that, he was released on parole twice, but his release was revoked both times after he tested positive for methamphetamine. The Parole Board previously called his criminal history “appalling” and his previous community supervision history “abysmal.”

In March 2022, he was convicted on a handful of more recent crimes that occurred since his release from jail, and he was given a little more than six months additional time.

The most recent assault allegation with McAlpine occurred prior to that March 2022 sentencing.

Meanwhile, McAlpine has a lengthy criminal record. He was most recently sentenced to 40.5 months of jail in July 2020 for a crime spree that included seven separate incidents. But with presentence credit, he was left with 615 additional days.

That crime spree came to a head at the West Kelowna Walmart parking lot on June 1, 2019, when police moved in to arrest him. As McAlpine fled the scene, an officer fired a single shot at McAlpine's truck, but the officer missed and McAlpine got away. He was finally arrested 10 days later.

Offenders in Canada become eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence, and he was likely still on parole for his previous convictions when the Dec. 31, 2021 incident occurred.