He committed a violent home invasion. Now, he’s running for town council

Paul Hanlon on the steps of the courthouse in Harbour Grace, N.L., in an undated SaltWire Network photo. Photo by SaltWire Network

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He’s an unlikely candidate for town council: Paul Hanlon’s recent criminal history includes convictions for assault, a violent home invasion and trying to sell drugs to an undercover police officer.

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Now he wants to be a councillor in the rural Newfoundland town where he perpetrated some of his offences, saying he has “paid my debt to society.”

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“I should have a chance to prove myself,” Hanlon said in correspondence with CBC. “It’s all about starting over.”

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Hanlon, 59, who is seeking one of seven council seats in the local service district of Victoria, a small town about an hour’s drive east of St. John’s in Conception Bay North (CBN). He promises “a positive change” and is running under the slogan: “I get it done!!!”

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According to a campaign photo shared in the community Facebook page, his platform focuses on replacing — not repairing — aging water and sewer infrastructure, creating groomed ATV trails connected to the East Coast Trail, and “fire break,” an issue that arose after huge portions of CBN towns were destroyed by wildfires last summer.

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The election is Thursday. Hanlon has not replied to repeated National Post requests for comment.

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Hanlon’s record of convictions dates back to early 2017, when he was sentenced on charges of assault with a weapon and contravention of firearms storage regulations stemming from a May 2015 incident in which he struck a woman with a rock and also damaged a vehicle she was travelling in, according to reports by SaltWire Network at the time. A gun was recovered during the police investigation.

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Hanlon was released while awaiting trial, but was arrested in March 2016 after being seen in a local bar with two other men, a breach of release conditions prohibiting him from entering an establishment that serves alcohol.

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Two months later, following a 30-day intermittent sentence, Hanlon and another man were arrested after an investigation into a March 2015 incident in which a man was shot with a sawed-off shotgun in Carbonear, another CBN town.

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At sentencing for the earlier crime in January 2017, the judge in the case credited him with time served awaiting trial and added two years of probation, a 10-year firearms prohibition and an order to submit DNA for entry into a database, as reported by SaltWire Network.

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It’s not immediately clear what sentence Hanlon received for the second incident, which involved two charges of assault with a weapon and single count charges of unauthorized possession of a firearm, unsafe storage of a firearm and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

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Less than nine months after his 2017 sentencing, Hanlon was arrested again for his part in a Victoria home invasion.