A pre-sentence report that had been prepared about Anderson was described as very positive. It outlined a young woman who has had a strong connection to the workforce, was a good daughter growing up and someone who had attended a year of university. Anderson’s lawyer, Colin Fraser, said his client wants to return to the workforce or go back to school to further her education when the time is right.
Anderson just recently gave birth to a son. She was pregnant at the time of the Blades’ homicide. Jermaine Middleton is the father of the child. A court condition bans Anderson from having any contact with Middleton or Huskins.
Anderson is no longer living in Yarmouth. She lives elsewhere in the province with her mother and child. Prior to this conviction she had no criminal record. She spent a month in custody following her arrest, before being released on bail last August.
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In his sentencing remarks, Justice Haliburton spoke of the anguish felt by the Blades’ family, given the sudden and shocking death of Neil Blades Jr.
He also spoke to Anderson about choices she had made in her life. He said she chose her friends, and she chose the life she was leading, and doubted those choices made her parents proud. He noted how when she went away to university she could have been a lawyer, or a nurse or a teacher.
“Somehow by the end of your first year of university it seems your goals must have changed,” he said, adding Anderson is not typical of many of the people the court sees. She did not come from a broken or abusive household, she did not spend her years bouncing from foster home to foster home.
“That was not your story,” the judge said. “Now with the sentence that has been imposed, you will have a big job to do if you wish to provide your baby with as many advantages as you had growing up.”
As for the other people charged in connection with this case, Middleton’s preliminary inquiry is scheduled for March 4, 5 and 12. The preliminary inquiry for Ian Huskins is set to go forward on May 6 and 7. The evidence presented at those hearings will also be banned from publication, as is standard with preliminary inquiries.
