A man from Stanley Mission believed he had a legitimate concern when he drunkenly told clerks at a La Ronge grocery store that someone had contaminated the store’s food with an HIV-infected needle.
However, the way Morton Dennis Cook presented that concern, which police discovered was an unfounded rumour, may have been affected by his level of intoxication, a La Ronge courtroom heard last week.
Cook, 48, agreed to sign a peace bond on a charge of misleading a police officer. His other two charges — obstruction and failing to comply with an undertaking — were stayed.
Peace bonds are a type of court order that often include conditions; they are not sentences and do not require a guilty plea.
“The Criminal Code does not punish people for bringing forward what they believe are legitimate concerns,” prosecutor Luke Coupal emphasized.
That doesn’t change the damage it caused to the community, he said. Stores in La Ronge, Air Ronge, and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band reserves, including Sucker River and Stanley Mission, removed food products such as fruits, vegetables, meat, and baked goods with fillings, the Mamawetan Churchill River Health Region said shortly after the incident in March.
Coupal said the response likely would have been different if Cook had been sober and explained what he had heard in a more eloquent manner.
The peace bond agreement requires Cook to provide an apology letter to the town of La Ronge and the grocery store. He also must attend counselling for alcohol addiction.
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