Man facing charges after ‘brutally’ assaulting two bystanders

CITYnews halifax / By Natasha O’Neill

Two men are facing a long road to recovery after an assault by a person left them in life-threatening condition.

Annapolis District RCMP officers laid several charges against William Cedric Douglas Windsor, of Clementsport, N.S., a community east of Digby along the north shore. The 25-year-old is facing multiple charges after two incidents of assault that left multiple people with injuries.

It happened Sept. 6 around 9:00 p.m. when officers were responding to an incident at a home along Highway 1. While on the way there, they learned of another assault involving the same suspect.

When they responded to the scene, they found a vehicle had crashed into a guardrail and two bystanders suffering life-threatening injuries. RCMP learned that the suspect was involved in an altercation at the home, where he assaulted a person, leaving them with non-life-threatening injuries, before he fled in a car. After he crashed into the guardrail, he assaulted the two men, leaving them with “severe facial injuries,” according to a fundraiser online.

Those two men have been identified as Mark Grantham, a professional artist, and his partner David Parker, a former principal horn with Symphony Nova Scotia and a self-employed artist, a GoFundMe reads.

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“Mark & David were rushed to hospital in Kentville and then transferred to hospital in Halifax due to the seriousness of their injuries. They both required surgeries to repair their severe facial injuries,” Monica Grantham and Jenn Ferguson, Mark’s sisters wrote in the GoFundMe. “Mark also sustained a fractured arm. David received serious head trauma and spent three days in the ICU.”

Mark was released from hospital but David remains. According to the family, the pair will have a long road to recovery including ongoing medical care, physical therapy and dietary support. David, the sisters write, “will also require cognitive rehabilitation.”

The fundraiser is trying to raise money to help the two men who will need dental treatment and reconstruction costs, and to assist Mark in visiting David, who will be in the Acquired Brain Injury Rehab program in Halifax.

“The financial burden of this senseless attack is creating serious challenges during an already traumatic time,” the fundraiser reads.

RCMP were able to arrest the suspect in the case and charged him with:

• Aggravated assault (two counts)
• Assault causing bodily harm
• Assault
• Uttering threats
• Dangerous operation of a motor vehicle
• Operation while impaired
• Failure to comply with probation order (two counts)

He was held in custody until he appeared at a hearing on Sept. 8.