An Edmonton man who was designated a dangerous offender and jailed indefinitely for a brutal attack on St. Albertan Tom Bregg intends to appeal his sentence.
Gary Edwin Mattson has filed a notice with the Alberta Court of Appeal attempting to have his dangerous offender designation overturned. Mattson’s lawyer, Naeem Rauf, confirmed the appeal was filed last week and said the case will be turned over to another lawyer with more experience at the court of appeal.
Mattson viciously attacked Bregg after boarding the Edmonton Transit Service bus Bregg was driving on Dec. 3, 2009. Mattson punched Bregg several times in the head, knocking him unconscious before dragging him from the driver’s seat to the pavement outside the bus and stomping the man on the head.
The assault left Bregg near death. He suffered broken facial bones, brain damage and lost an eye in the attack and his recovery is still ongoing. He was unable to return to work as a bus driver.
The dangerous offender designation Judge Harry Bridges imposed upon Mattson will keep him in jail indefinitely. He will have no hearings for at least seven years and the parole board will only release him if they are completely satisfied that he is no longer any danger to the public.
Very few people who receive the dangerous offender designation have ever been released from prison.
Rauf said immediately after the decision that he thought his client should appeal, noting Mattson’s longest sentence prior to this conviction was 90 days..
“He himself will be the last person to defend what he did. I know that he is very contrite about what he did and is very remorseful, but you don’t throw the keys away for an action that took two or three minutes,” he said at the time.
Rauf said those reasons, along with other issues he believes the judge failed to adequately consider, would be part of the full appeal.
No date has been set for the appeal. Rauf said he filed the initial appeal, but another lawyer would likely expand upon it at a later date.
