Man who beat woman in unprovoked attack released, credited with time served

GUELPH – A 34-year-old Mount Forest man who beat a woman in front of her son in a church parking lot in 2022 pleaded guilty in Guelph court on Jan. 5 to causing bodily harm in the unprovoked attack.

On a Sunday, a little over three years ago in Mount Forest, Raymond Cote ran toward a woman he didn’t know in the parking lot of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and began attacking her in front of her teenage son, court heard.

Crown prosecutor Tom Meehan said Cote punched the woman numerous times in the face with a closed fist.

Cote continued the attack after the woman collapsed, kicking her as she lay in the parking lot; her son unable to protect his mother from the outsized man.

The assault, the prosecutor said, was “utterly wanton, unprovoked and terrifying.”

Bystanders identified Cote by name, and Wellington OPP officers found him nearby at his residence.

As police approached, Meehan said, Cote removed his sweater and became combative, clenching his fists. Cote tried to kick and hit the officers as they forced him to the ground to arrest him.

The woman was left battered and suffering from a concussion, its effects still lingering today, court heard.

In a victim impact statement, read aloud by the prosecutor, the woman said she is “horrified by what has happened to me.”

She no longer feels safe in her daily life and fears going to the church she has been attending for nearly 50 years.

The woman’s husband and son, reading from statements in court, said members of their family are always looking over their shoulders and fearing the worst.

It was the “worst day of my life,” the son said, adding, “witnessing my mother being attacked was horrific.”

“We live in Canada. We feel that we are safe; maybe we were living in a bubble,” the husband said.

Justice Lynn Robinson, addressing Cote, said “the trickle-down effect of you just randomly assaulting this lady is huge.”

Robinson said the small-statured woman must have been terrified and didn’t have a hope of fending off Cote. Her son, 17 at the time, looked on, unable to protect his mother during the frenzied attack.

“You’re looking at me like you’re dead inside here, do you understand what you’ve done?” Robinson asked Cote, who mumbled in response that he did.

Cote also pleaded guilty the same day to additional charges of threatening to kill a man, and for kicking and punching the man’s neighbour when he came to his aid in a separate, unprovoked attack in Wellington North in 2021.

“What’s the trigger, is it a mental health issue, what’s going on?” the judge asked.

Cote’s defence lawyer Gerald Punnett said Cote has struggled with “his mental problem” since he was 19 years old, after he banged his head while diving into a pool. 

Punnett did not detail the specific problem.

A four-year prison sentence proposed by the Crown and defence was “charitable,” Robinson said.

“You have a criminal record for violence,” the judge said, detailing previous 2020 convictions for robbery, threats and assault.

But in light of Cote’s guilty pleas, Robinson accepted the joint sentencing agreement.

The judge imposed maximum sentences of two years less a day for assault and making a death threat, related to the 2021 attack on the men, and to two years less a day for assault causing bodily harm against the woman in 2022.

Cote had been in custody at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton for almost three years as of Jan. 5, and was released the same day, credited with time served.

Courts consider each day spent behind bars prior to sentencing as 1.5 days, so Cote’s sentence, on paper, works out to four years and one month.

Robinson placed Cote on three years of probation, and ordered him not to contact a list of people and to steer clear of the church and its congregants. 

Cote was also ordered to provide DNA and is prohibited from owning weapons for life.

Additional charges for failing to follow bail conditions and assaulting police were dropped by the Crown.

Robinson asked Cote if he wanted to address the court, suggesting that perhaps he was sorry for what he did, but Cote declined.

Punnett declined to comment when reached by phone, only offering that Cote was lucky to be out of Maplehurst.