Acquitted on charges relating to kidnapping girlfriend
A Kamloops man has been acquitted on a string of serious charges alleging he kidnapped and beat up his girlfriend.
However, a judge has ruled he will be required to take anger-management counselling.
Robert McMillan was in Kamloops provincial court on Friday, July 13, where the Crown agreed to have him enter into a peace bond.
That means the official court record will show a not-guilty verdict, but the 27-year-old will still be bound by court-ordered conditions for a year.
McMillan was charged with assault and unlawful confinement after an incident earlier this year.
Court previously heard McMillan's girlfriend placed a frantic 911 call on Feb. 1, stating she was being held against her will in her boyfriend's speeding car.
"I heard the comments of her being abducted by her scary boyfriend, who was speeding away," said Kamloops provincial court Judge Hermann Rohrmoser, referring to an audio recording of the 911 call played in court at an earlier hearing.
McMillan's vehicle was pulled over by a Kamloops Mountie for speeding, court heard, just as RCMP dispatch alerted officers about the reported abduction.
Rohrmoser described McMillan's actions after the traffic stop as "antagonistic to the extreme" — noting he would not comply with the officer's commands.
"It was almost as though it was designed to make a confrontation with police where he would be the loser," the judge said.
McMillan's girlfriend later recanted, court heard, and said she called 911 "by accident."
Rohrmoser agreed to the one-year peace bond and ordered McMillan to begin anger-management counselling by November at the latest.
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