Richard Hannell sentenced for police assault, criminal harassment

A 40-year-old Charlottetown man was sentenced to a total of seven months in jail in Charlottetown Provincial Court Wednesday morning for criminal harassment, uttering threats, and assaulting a police officer.

The court heard that in March Richard Robert Hannell criminally harassed a couple that lived near him on Garfield Street in Charlottetown.

Then in May, while waiting to be sentenced for that harassment, Hannell got into a dispute with a man he was buying a car from in Winsloe and threatened to damage his property.

When two police officers arrested Hannell sometime later, he spat at them and threatened to kill the officers and their family members.

'Completely and totally unacceptable'

In court Wednesday, Judge Nancy Orr condemned how Hannell treated police.

"There's no reason, no excuse for anyone to utter threats to those officers, much less their families," said Orr.

"They're simply doing their jobs. It's completely and totally unacceptable and it will not be tolerated."

Orr pointed out that, as is made clear inHannell's pre-sentence report and psychiatric assessment, the 40-year-old has mental health and addiction issues that have gone "unrecognized and unacknowledged by him." She said those issues need to be addressed.

Orr sentenced Hannell to four months in jail for uttering threats and assaulting police, and an additional three months for criminal harassment. That total sentence was reduced to 111 days, as she gave him credit for time already served in custody.