A former Liard First Nation chief won't be seeing the inside of a jail cell after an assault on his estranged wife.

Daniel Morris was given a suspended sentence and two years' probation in a Lower Post, B.C., courtroom Thursday.

His case has generated debate in Watson Lake about family violence as well as crime in general, sparking a community meeting about the topics in late August.

As well, it's created rifts within the Kaska nation.

Morris initially took a leave of absence from the chief's chair when he was charged last June.

However, he refused to step aside completely to enable an election for a new chief, even after he was convicted upon his late-July guilty pleas.

According to a lawsuit filed against Morris, the acting chief and councillors last October, the first nation's own regulations require a chief to quit the job completely if convicted of an indictable offence.

Earlier in the year, Kaska elders signed a petition calling for Morris to quit and call a new election.

'If we keep quiet about violence, we're saying it's acceptable,' petition creator Rose Caesar said early last July. 'We don't want to be silent any more.'

According to radio reports, after Morris caught his estranged wife with another man in late June, he confronted them with a rifle and threatened to kill them.

Though the male victim managed to escape after a scrap with Morris, the former chief spent the next couple hours beating and kicking his wife, sending her to hospital for three days, according to media reports.

Last July, Morris had pleaded guilty to threatening the man and pointing a gun at him, as well as forcibly confining his estranged wife and assaulting her.

Instead of the jail time asked for by the Crown, B.C. provincial court Judge Dennis Schmidt ordered that Morris take part in counselling as well as traditional first nation practices.

The visiting judge had put off the sentencing hearing originally scheduled for early October because he wanted the Kaska Tribal Council to provide him with information about the community's domestic violence situation in general.

If his probation officer directs him to, Morris must participate in the male spousal abuse program offered in Watson Lake.

As well, elders may recommend that Morris host a potlatch and a men's talking circle as part of his healing.

A ban on alcohol consumption, 60 hours' community service to be directed in consultation with the Kaska Tribal Council and the Liard Aboriginal Women's Society, as well as no-contact orders with the two victims are on the list of conditions Morris will live with for the next two years.

If he breaches the suspended sentence, Schmidt could opt to re-sentence the man for the original offence.

Morris had been jailed after the assault last June, but was released on bail after he pleaded guilty July 22.