Nova Scotia man sentenced for sexually assaulting, beating former intimate partner over 36-hour period

Editor’s note: This article contains details readers may find disturbing.

A Cumberland County man who repeatedly beat and sexually assaulted his former intimate partner over a 36-hour period while their five-year-old son was present has been declared a long-term offender.

Noah Daniel Jamieson, 28, of North Wallace pleaded guilty in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Amherst in June to four charges from the events of Nov. 16 and 17, 2024: aggravated sexual assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and committing a sexual assault while choking someone.

Jamieson was sentenced Friday by Justice Jeffrey Hunt, who accepted a joint recommendation from lawyers.

The judge imposed a sentence of six years in prison less remand credit of 1,049 days and designated Jamieson a long-term offender.

That designation means that after Jamieson completes his prison term, he will be subject to seven years of strict supervision in the community.

“Aggravated sexual assault is one of the most serious offences in the Criminal Code outside of a homicide-based offence,” Hunt said. “(It) has been called the most offensive intrusion on personal security and integrity outside of taking a life.

“Mr. Jamieson assaulted, degraded and endangered his victim, an individual with whom he was supposed to be in a loving relationship as people who shared a child.”

The judge said the facts agreed to by Jamieson and his lawyer, Jim O’Neil, and read into the record by Crown attorney Mary Ellen Nurse were “disturbing.”

“His actions were inexplicable and obviously inexcusable,” Hunt said. “The terror that would have been experienced by the victim could … scarcely be imagined.”

He said that while it appears the child was in another room while his mother was being assaulted, “there’s no escaping the fact that (he) must have realized what was happening to some degree, and that adds to the nightmare.

“This went on for a significant amount of time. . . . It’s evident that Mr. Jamieson is a dangerous individual, and the sentence has to be responsive to the entirety of the circumstances, including his risk of reoffending and his need for ongoing supervision and control by the appropriate authorities.”

A publication ban on the identity of the victim, Jessie Van De Wiel, was lifted at her request at the start of Friday’s hearing.

“Ms. Van De Wiel has opted, after what she indicated was careful consideration, to set aside those privacy protections,” Hunt said. “She has determined that this is a part of her own particular healing path and a means of taking back control of her own narrative, her own story.”

The judge said he wanted to note for the benefit of the victim and her loved ones that a lot of what the court had to do at the sentencing hearing may have seemed “antiseptic and technical and even impersonal.”

“I regret that aspect of sentencing in cases such as this,” he said. “But sentencings of this nature are bound by technicalities and legislative provisions and rules that we all have to abide by. … None of these issues that we have to deal with, though, lead us to forget who the true victim is and what the victim has suffered.”

Hunt heard victim impact statements from Van De Wiel, who was bruised from head to toe in the assaults and suffered a brain bleed, and six of her relatives.

“This is a case of extreme victim impact,” he said. “Ms. Van De Wiel required urgent hospital care. She had experienced a sustained trauma. Her family has suffered along with her.

“The fault is that of Mr. Jamieson and his choice to victimize and terrorize and degrade the mother of his child. She has spoken eloquently in her own voice in her victim impact statement.

“I have fully considered what she has shared today, together with that of her family.”

According to the agreed facts, Van De Wiel delivered her son to Jamieson’s mobile home in North Wallace on the evening of Nov. 15, 2024. The former couple planned to take the boy to an indoor play facility an hour’s drive away the next day.

She spent the night with Jamieson in the trailer before the visit became violent the next morning, which was a Saturday. Jamieson raped her in the back seat of her vehicle and then assaulted her in at least four rooms in the trailer over the next day and a half.

During the various assaults, Jamieson held Van De Wiel’s head in dirty water in the kitchen sink and in a mop bucket and threatened to kill her. He said “there’s no going back” and “I’m not going to stop.”

The pain was unbearable for Van De Wiel, whose eyes were swollen shut from the beating. She thought her only way out would be death.

Jamieson dropped her off at the Cumberland Regional Heath Care Centre in Upper Nappan that Sunday evening and drove away with their son in the vehicle. He was arrested by RCMP a short time later and has remained in custody.

“I truly believed that weekend in November (that) I would die in that trailer and I would never have a voice again to tell you of (my) suffering,” Van De Wiel said in her impact statement. “Call it chance, call it divine intervention, but I still have my life and voice.”

She said she has been struggling for almost two years to advocate for herself and her son, who’s now seven.

“The impact of this assault has reverberated into every area of my life,” she said. “There is not a moment of the day when I’m not hypervigilant and anxiety-ridden. I wake up and I go to sleep anxious. When I do fall asleep, I am haunted by nightmares.

“I remember every word, every blow, every fight, every kick, every stomp, every single thing that happened in that trailer. It plays in my mind like a movie reel on constant repeat.

“Part of my soul died in that trailer.”

Van De Wiel said she used to be young and carefree and thought she was safe in her little community but is now stuck in survival mode.

“I was so shocked that any human, let alone the young man who I grew up with, who I slept beside for years, the father of my special son, could behave in such a deplorable way and has the potential to cause such harm,” she said.

“I used to believe in the best in people. I used to believe in the best in you, Noah.”

But she said Jamieson showed her no mercy that weekend and chose to keep their son in the trailer while he beat her “for hours.”

“I am horrified that Noah subjected him to this,” she said. “Noah made a choice to mutilate me while our beautiful son was there.

“This never should have happened. No one on Earth deserves what happened to me. This ruptured my life as a result of the actions and choices of Noah. They are the results of a man who wanted to exert physical force and power over me to access sexual gratification and control.

“I am a mother to a little boy, someone’s daughter, a survivor of horrific crime. . . . I’m not a piece of evidence or a punching bag. I’m a person. I deserve safety and respect, and I always have.”

She said she is grateful that she got her son out of the situation and that he now gets to live in a violence-free home.

“That is the only positive impact to come out of any of this, but at what cost?” Van De Wiel said.

Jamieson came before the court with 15 previous convictions, including some for assaulting Van De Wiel and his father. He was cited for about 20 violations of institutional rules while on remand for these offences.

The court heard that Jamieson has abused alcohol and drugs, including cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, mushrooms, speed, ecstasy, benzodiazepines and opioids.

“Ultimately, Mr. Jamieson has chosen his own path,” the judge said. “He could have worked hard and built a life and a family. Instead, he’s chosen to throw all that way for a life of apparent drug use.

“It will be up to him what path he takes after his eventual release from custody, whenever that may be.”

Hunt said the aggravating factors in this case “write themselves,” including the accused’s criminal record, the fact that the violence was committed against a vulnerable intimate partner, and the high degree of harm that was caused.

The main mitigating factor was the guilty pleas, which spared the victim and her family the ordeal of a trial.

Jamieson did not address the court but his lawyer relayed that he was remorseful for his actions.

The judge said the long-term offender designation was “a critical part” of the joint sentencing recommendation. He said he was satisfied that the sentence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute or be contrary to the public interest.

A forensic psychiatrist who examined Jamieson said he has personality disorder with mixed antisocial and borderline traits, as well as severe poly-substance use disorder. Dr. Scott Theriault found no clear evidence of primary major mental illness such as bipolar disorder or psychotic disorder.

Theriault said Jamieson poses a high risk of future violent recidivism, including sexual violence, especially in intimate partner relationships. But in his view, there is a reasonable possibility that the risk could eventually be managed in the community if Jamieson receives and engages in intensive sustained treatment.

The doctor opined that Jamieson meets the statutory criteria for designation as a long-term offender. The lawyers and the judge accepted that finding.

Hunt said the designation, when coupled with the recommended incarceration period, will result in a “very lengthy” period of supervision for Jamieson.

“That was obviously critical in allowing the Crown to join in this sentence,” the judge said. “For the defence . . . to have joined in such a designation also speaks to the fact that they recognize the seriousness of the situation and what it was going to take to bring it to a close.”

After remand credit, Jamieson has 1,141 days to serve in prison.

The judge imposed a pair of lifetime orders prohibiting Jamieson from possessing firearms and requiring him to register as a sex offender. Hunt also ordered him to provide a sample of his DNA for a national databank and to have no contact with Van De Wiel or her family while he’s incarcerated.