Intruder who drove 12-year-old girl to jump from balcony pleads guilty

An Ottawa man has pleaded guilty in a case in which he was accused of barging into a third-floor apartment and driving a young girl to jump 10 metres off the balcony.

David White, 58, pleaded guilty Friday in the Ontario Court of Justice to assault, resisting arrest and breaking and entering with intent to commit an indictable offence.

White was sentenced to nine months house arrest and two years probation — a sentence that wasn’t enough for the girl’s family.

“I feel injustice to my daughter,” said Zeinab Mohamed, whose daughter Sumaya suffered serious injuries. “I feel like the system is really discriminating [toward] us.”

Mohamed said the sentence makes her feel as though the legal system is stacked against people of colour.

“I feel I don’t belong … here — that’s what I feel,” she said. “I don’t belong to Canada.”

Had recently taken cocaine

Court heard that on June 20, 2021, White broke into an Ottawa Community Housing building on Cooper Street in the city’s downtown core.

He’d recently taken cocaine and had been refused entry by his ex-girlfriend to another apartment in the same building. He instead went to the third floor where Mohamed and her daughter lived.

Mohamed, who uses a wheelchair, was delivering food to her neighbours when White pushed past her and forced himself inside her apartment.

White blocked the apartment door from the inside, yelling at Sumaya — who was 12 at the time — that everyone in the building, including her mother, was dead.

Sumaya told her mother she hid in the bathroom but soon realized none of the doors in the apartment had locks. In a moment of panic, she ran past the man to the balcony and jumped about 10 metres down.

Sumaya survived but shattered bones in her ankle, leg and back. For months afterward, she wore a back brace and had pins in her legs to hold the bones together.

‘Every aspect of her life has changed’

The Crown attorney said the family’s impact statement was one of the most upsetting he’s heard.

In it, the family described the significant injuries and intense trauma Sumaya sustained from the jump off the balcony.

“This crime … dimmed the light in that home,” said Samsam Ahmed, Sumaya’s aunt, in an interview with CBC. “There is something deep [inside] my niece that isn’t there anymore.”

Ahmed said the physical injuries sustained during the incident cost Sumaya dearly.

“Every aspect of her life has changed,” Ahmed said.

As for White, court heard how he came from an abusive past that led to alcohol and drug addiction. Shortly before he committed the crime, he lost his son to an overdose.

Doctors believe he was in a mental health crisis at the time and that he feels deep remorse for what he did.

In court Friday, an emotional White apologized directly to the family and said he wanted to make things right by pleading guilty.

Plea bargain best way forward, lawyers say

Both the Crown and White’s lawyer said they felt a plea bargain was the best way forward.

One of the key arguments was that White committed the crime in 2021, one year before federal legislation was passed that holds people under extreme intoxication responsible for crimes they commit.

As a result, if the case went to trial, White’s lawyer argued he would likely walk away not guilty.

But for the family, that argument rings hollow.

“We are still suffering,” Mohamed said.