Maxwell Beech believes in second chances.

It was chance on Tuesday that brought the 37-year-old to the podium in courtroom 103 at the Brampton courthouse, to tell senior Judge Hugh Atwood in a heartfelt speech how grateful he was for his.

When Beech began to speak, with the Crown and judge’s permission during a lull in proceedings, the room grew silent and then emotional, recall those who were present.

In front of a half-full gallery of onlookers, including three offenders sitting in the prisoner’s box, Beech thanked the judge for giving him a chance seven years ago when he was facing serious criminal charges, not sure Atwood would remember his story.

But the judge remembered him.

“How are you doing?” Beech said he asked him.

So he told the judge about his life, how he runs his own business installing blinds and home security systems. He told him he’d been a good father, how he’d been able to raise his son, now 8, to watch him grow up. He just wanted to say thanks, he said. To tell the judge he’d made the right decision.

“King Solomon,” he said, “couldn’t have adjudicated better.”

“He told the story and everyone in the court was in tears. … The judge was in tears,” said Beech’s former defence lawyer, Gary Batasar, his own voice choking as he retold the story.

Witnesses said the judge turned red, weeping silently in his chair, holding his face in his hands.

“It was so emotional, so moving, it was so surreal,” Batasar said. He’d left the courtroom near the end, unable to keep it together. Even the three offenders in the prisoner’s box appeared to have tears in their eyes, he said.

When Beech finished speaking, saying, “Thank you” and “God bless,” the stunned onlookers in the courtroom simply applauded.

The judge said it was the best thing anyone had ever said to him, Batasar recalled. He told Beech he’d “made his year.”

Nothing about that moment had been planned. Batasar had run into Beech by chance in the courthouse that afternoon. Beech told him he’d always wanted to thank the judge, but had neither his name nor contact information.

Knowing the judge was steps away, in bail court, Batasar brought Beech in before Atwood and asked if he could speak, aware that it was an unorthodox request.

“I don’t think it’s ever happened in Canadian history before,” he said later. “It’s not something that I’ve ever seen.”

The justice system is a thankless job, often criticized for its revolving nature, Batasar said. But he said there couldn’t be a judge more deserving of praise than Atwood, who declined to comment to the Star.

“This guy is probably the best judge in the country,” Batasar said. “He personifies grace. He personifies what a judge should be.”

When he was facing sentencing for gun and drug-related charges seven years ago, Beech, who had been tangled up in the justice system as a troubled youth, was told to say his goodbyes.

“I had walked into the room expecting to get four years,” he said.

But in the interval between criminal acts and potential prison time, Beech said he found God, was baptized, and turned in a life of indiscretions to become a “Bible man” and look after his son, whose mother wasn’t really in the picture.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

On that day, he was resigned to whatever fate Atwood would assign him.

“I really deserved to have had the book thrown at me,” he said.

“Today I accept that,” he remembered telling the judge. “But I want you to know I’m a changed man,” he pleaded, telling his story.

Atwood told Beech he wasn’t going to give him what his lawyer had recommended: 18 months' house arrest. But he wasn't going with what the Crown asked for, either.

Beech’s heart sank, fearing something worse.

Then Atwood — a man reputed to temper justice with mercy in more than 20 years on the bench — responded in a way he hadn’t expected.

“I could see you're a changed man,” Beech remembers the judge told him. He repeats this phrase like a badge of honour.

Atwood sentenced Beech to serve just 90 days on weekends, reporting to Metro West detention centre on Fridays and released Monday mornings, to go home, and raise his son.

“This man gave me another shot. Another opportunity at life,” Beech said.

But it was more than that. “He saved two lives,” Beech said: his and that of his then-newborn son Immanuel, whose life could have been much different without a constant parent figure.

“It really laid an impression on my heart,” he said. It had always weighed on him to thank the judge for what he’d given him, for believing in him.

For Beech, his brief moment in front of Atwood on Tuesday was both a blur and a blessing.

He said life isn’t always easy. He works hard to provide for his four children. He said he’d like to have the opportunity to speak with youth and offenders, to tell them what he knows now and to tell them there’s a better way.

“People need a chance,” he said.