A woman with a history of waiting for her husbands and boyfriends to be drunk and less able to defend themselves before attacking them will do territorial time.

While in custody, however, she'll be sent to a penitentiary for treatment aimed at violent women.

Helen June Smith, a 51-year-old first nations woman whose entire life has been marred by violence, was given a further 14 months' jail in the Whitehorse Correctional Centre (WCC) for assaulting her husband, Robert Smith.

She'd pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm, and told a psychologist she'd assaulted her husband three times before.

Chief territorial court Judge Heino Lilles told the woman he had only three options: the federal jail system, where programs are accessible; put into WCC, where no treatment is available; or sent to WCC with an order that cross-jurisdictional agreements be used to send the woman Outside for treatment during that time.

The difference between the various options would mean sentencing Smith to more than two years federal time or less than two years territorial time.

Smith initially told Lilles Monday she wouldn't agree to attending the B.C. program suggested at her last appearance by a psychologist. However, she changed her mind after a brief adjournment to speak with workers from her first nation.

She'd appeared in court Monday asking to be sent to a Vancouver Island facility instead, but Lilles told her neither he nor her get to choose which treatment the woman will receive. That's left up to the professionals once they look at her history, Lilles said.

As well, he noted, he can't sentence someone on the basis she might be accepted into a program that might be funded by her first nation.

Once she's done the 14-month jail stint, which will likely include the six-month intensive treatment for violent women in the Abbotsford, B.C., facility connected with the federal jail system, Smith will be on probation for three years.

She was given the regular double credit for the 5 1/2 months she spent in remand custody at WCC as well as credit for the six months she spent under house arrest at the Salvation Army's halfway house.

Her effective sentence is 31 months.

Among the 17 terms on her lengthy probation order, Smith must continue her treatment, can't drink, must maintain a sober household and must tell her probation officer before she starts a live-in relationship with a man.

She's also forbidden from contacting her husband, unless given prior permission.

She and Robert had been at home last May when Helen Smith called the Carcross RCMP at 7 a.m. to report she'd 'beaten up' her husband.

She told police they'd been partying into the early-morning hours when Robert made some derogatory comments about her. She took offence and attacked him, punching and kicking him in the head.

He ended the altercation with cuts to his face, swelling and bruising.

Robert Smith's blood alcohol was at .20, while his wife's was at zero. Her partying didn't involve much alcohol, said Lilles, noting other drugs can't be ruled out.

'This assault took place when he was very intoxicated and less able to defend himself,' Lilles said.

Helen Smith asked the RCMP to find her husband so he could get medical help, Lilles noted as he outlined the mitigating factors. He also noted the husband had refused to testify before, and it's likely Helen Smith wouldn't have been prosecuted if she hadn't readily confessed to police.

Also, during her time in custody pending sentencing, Smith completed all the substance abuse treatment available at the jail and approached family violence counsellors, Alcohol and Drug Services officials, a program for residential school survivors and a psychologist funded by her first nation.

She's also contacted Hospice Yukon and maintained a connection with various religious organizations, from which she receives support.

Nearly a dozen people sat through her sentencing in support of Smith.

Smith's criminal record starts when she was still a teen. It continues through the next several decades, and includes five assault convictions, two for assault causing bodily harm, one for assault with a weapon and one for aggravated assault.

In 2000, she assaulted her husband a second time, but, as he wouldn't testify against her, the matter was resolved through diversion.

In that case, her husband had a broken arm and ribs, and was medivaced Outside for reconstructive surgery to his face.

'All assaults followed a common path: drinking to excess, and then becoming aggressive,' psychologist Dr. Douglas Boer wrote in a report to the court. 'The aggression is gratuitous and excessive and has resulted in permanent mutilation and scarring of some of her victims.'

Though she's often been an offender, Smith experienced victimhood for much of her life.

'One of her earliest memories (at age six) was trying to find a gun so she could shoot her father, as he had beaten up her mother quite badly,' Boer wrote. The woman said she realizes she's been angry with her father and takes it out on men in her life, Boer noted.

Her memories of her mother aren't much better. Smith told the doctor one of her first female assault victims reminded her of her mother.

As a child, she experienced physical and sexual abuse in residential school as well as at home at the hands of an uncle and visitors to the home.

As an adult, she's continued to live with violence, at the hands of abusive partners and when she was raped a decade ago.

Smith has been drinking since age 11, and used cocaine and heroin in her mid-40s. Due to addictions, she recalls little of a period of time spent working as a prostitute while living on skid row in Vancouver.

'She also admitted that she has been abusive to her partners, often waiting until they were drunk before assaulting them, since she could not successfully assault them when the men were sober,' Boer wrote.

Diagnosed with anti-social and borderline personality disorders, Smith is considered a high risk to re-offend. Without a wide variety of treatment which isn't available in the Yukon she's not manageable in the community, the doctor concluded.

'Her risk for violence may escalate to fatal proportions and the likely victim of her future violent behaviour will probably be her unfortunate alcoholic, and thus easily victimized, husband Robert,' the doctor wrote in his report.