For the 2nd time in less than a year a provincial court judge has issued a conditional discharge to 48 year old Christopher Carl Jentsch of Oliver.

In a long 2 hour sentencing hearing at the Penticton Law Courts, Judge Bradford Chapman laid out the case of an assault at the Oliver Airport August 1, 2010 in which Cawston rancher Ace Elkink was struck. On that day Elkink landed his plane and was tying it down in the hanger when approach by Chris Jentsch who asked the pilot his name to confirm who he was.

Jentsch pled guilty to assault but his story and that of the complainant were different.

Elkink told police he was punched in the face, fell to the concrete injuring his head and back. Jentsch said he was reaching out to Elkink and they both fell together with his watch injurying the left side of Elkink’s face.

Defence attorney Michael Welsh wanted to show the significance of what happened prior to the assault by detailing the Testalinda mud slide June 13 that destroyed Jentsch’s house linking it to the dam owned by Elkink high in the mountains above.

Judge Chapman said he can realize how devastating this mud slide was to the Jentsch family but that Elkink was not on trial and nothing was entered in evidence to indicate that blame for the mudslide had been attached. He said that by giving a conditional discharge he was not condoning actions of Jentsch which he call inappropriate. The Crown was stronger in saying Jentsch took the law into his own hands almost 6 weeks after the slide rather than taking responsible measures in a legal way.

Before sentencing – many character witness letters were introduced about Jentsch and his work in the community, primarily as a coach for girl’s basketball at SOSS. The judge said the actions in the assault were not in character with the person being portrayed as a model citizen. The crown had asked for a suspended sentence, considered to be more serious, because of the first assault conviction last year in an incident involving a friend of one of Jentsch’s daughters.

The sentence issued today was a conditional discharge with 1 year of probation, reporting immediately to a probation officer, taking any such behaviour courses as recommended, having no contact with Mr. Elkink anywhere/anytime, to pay a victim surcharge fee of $500 and provide a DNA sample to the RCMP in Oliver tomorrow.

Judge Chapman said the issue to him was the need for rehabilitation in that stress and anger could cause action that is not appropriate.

To end the hearing Jentsch was asked by the Judge to comment. Jentsch surprised the gallery and the court by saying that he wanted to contact Elkink because he buzzes his land holdings with a plane and the rancher’s livestock is entering his property.

Judge Chapman says no contact is allowed and that Jentsch should notify the RCMP and/or other authorities with complaints of this nature.