A 73-year-old former Edmonton man convicted of tying his mother to a chair and threatening to throw her off a balcony was today placed on 12 months probation.

However, the judge in the case told the wheelchair-bound Clifford Morin if he had been younger, healthier or without reasons for his behaviour toward his now-deceased mother, he would have sent him off to a penitentiary.

“I would not have had the slightest hesitation in sending you to jail,” said Justice Jack Watson, noting the elderly members of society must be protected by the law.

Watson called it a “very difficult” and “tragic” case and said he accepted that Morin’s criminal behaviour was the result of him being stressed due to being “overwhelmed” by having to care for both himself and his mother.

“You were simply charged with a responsibility that you could not cope with,” said Watson, telling Morin, who now lives in Vancouver, he doesn’t believe he has an “evil streak” in him. “You’re not a bad person.”

That said, the judge told court there must still be sanctions because there is a “line we do not cross,” and referred to the abuse and bullying of the elderly.

Morin was convicted of unlawful confinement and uttering threats last month, following a more than four-year-long trial delayed by Morin’s physical and mental issues.

At the time, Watson found Morin had put mittens on his mother’s hands, bound her to a chair and covered her with blankets in an intentional and angry effort to stop her from scratching herself while they lived together in his Edmonton apartment between 1999 and 2002.

He also found Morin, in a fit of anger, had threatened to throw his mother, Elizabeth Lussin, off the balcony.

Morin was acquitted of charges of assault and assault with a weapon after Watson ruled he was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he had intentionally struck or slapped his mother or used weapons on her.

At trial, court heard an taped police interview of the 87-year-old victim done just months before she died. In the chilling, beyond-the-grave testimony, Lussin described the 32 months of abuse at her son’s hands as horrible.

“It was pretty grim for a long time,” said Lussin. “He used to get that glazed look in his face and then he’d start pounding me in the head with his fists. He always went for my eyes and, of course, I am blind.”

Lussin said she moved into her son’s apartment in November 1999 after her second husband died.

She said he punched her, hit her with a cellphone, a hair brush and his cane, and tied her to her bed and a chair.

“He used to hit me something terrible. He used to pound me on the head until I saw stars. It was awful,” she said.

Lussin said she was too afraid to tell anyone and her son would lie about her injuries to her home-care worker.

Lussin said her son also yelled at her, slapped her face, choked her and picked her up by her hair.

Lussin said the years of abuse finally ended after her daughter, who was assaulted by Morin when she confronted him over her mother’s black eyes, went to police.

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