An extremely drunk man who frightened a Turner Valley mother by breaking into her house in the middle of the night will be spending his weekends in jail.

Tyrone Crawler, 47 of Morley, was sentence to a three-month intermittent sentence for being unlawfully in a dwelling house.

On Oct. 29 a mother home alone with her two young children was awoken by noises coming from her kitchen. She found a man in her home and began beating him with a piece of a vacuum cleaner to try to get him out. The intruder found his way down a hallway and shook one of her children before taking a jacket and shoes and leaving. Soon after, police arrested him near the Oilfields Hospital in Black Diamond.

Court heard the man drank a large quantity of alcohol and took Gravol prior to breaking in to the woman’s home.

Judge Bruce Fraser said it was surprising the man was functional based on the amount of alcohol he consumed.

“It was a wonder he could walk,” Fraser said, adding he wasn’t much of a threat because of his intoxicated state, but the startled mother would not have known that.

“A person’s house is a sanctuary and is the one place you should feel safe,” Fraser said.

Fraser said the accused was given jail time because of the gravity of the crime.

“Going into somebody’s house, particularly when they are home with their children has to be one of the most serious offences in the criminal code,” Fraser said.

A psychologist said Crawler didn’t fully appreciate the impact of his actions on the victim, but he did offer an apology in court.

“I wanted to apologize to the people I harmed, I scared,” he said. “I’m very deeply sorry for what happened.”

Crawler was sentenced to spend his weekends at the Calgary Correctional Centre until he completes his three-month sentence and will then be on probation for a year. The judge said it would not benefit society for the man to lose his job in Morley, which he has held for seven years and, therefore, imposed the intermittent sentence.

“It is said stress is the cause of his recidivism,” Fraser said. “Financial issues and losing his job will increase that stress.”

Fraser ordered him to stay away from alcohol and to take treatment for alcohol abuse.

He said booze was behind many of his long list of prior convictions.

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