(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Sept. 24, 2003)
Repeat offender doesn't frequent jail
By Leo Knight
ON Friday night members of the North Vancouver RCMP burglary section arrested a man who has been a plague to residents of the Lower Seymour - Dollarton area.
This is just his most recent crime spree.
In the past couple of weeks, the area began experiencing a rash of residential break-ins in what is a relatively crime-free neighbourhood in the normal course of events.
While investigating one of the early break-ins, police were able to obtain suspect fingerprints.
A subsequent search by forensic identification members got a "hit." A North Vancouver man, well-known to detachment officers, was positively identified as the suspect. The investigation then heated up. Police knew if this particular man was back and active, the crime stats were about to go through the roof.
Over the next few days, five more homes in the area were hit and fingerprint evidence recovered. In each case the lifted prints were identified as being those of the same suspect, a sometime resident of a residence on Dollarton Highway, his mom's home, where he lives when he is not flopping somewhere in Vancouver. When he was arrested, he was on probation.
A few months back, an off-duty police officer happened to be driving down Dollarton and spotted the same man. She correctly assumed he was looking for a place to break into. She mustered some assistance and waited and watched.
The man, true to form, broke into the attached garage of a home on Dollarton. When he emerged, he was carrying two tool boxes filled with stuff. As the police moved in, the man fled onto a trail and was subsequently tracked down by a police dog.
The Crown prosecutor would only approve charges of theft. Why? God only knows.
The police fought back and managed to get a further charge of trespass by night added on. It was these charges this man was on probation for on Friday night when he was arrested again.
He was still in custody when I wrote this column early this week and the police have adamantly demanded he stay there.
And so he should. He has been on probation for virtually his entire adult life.
He has previous convictions for failing to comply with a probation order and breaching conditions of a conditional sentence order.
He has multiple convictions for break and enter as well as for trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking.
His criminal record, stretching back to his teenaged days, shows he has been sentenced to a grand total of 14 months in jail. The most significant sentence was in 1995 when he received nine months in jail and a further 18 months probation for a burglary in North Vancouver. Since then he has been mollycoddled by the court system with punishments like a suspended sentence and two years' probation, also in 1995.
More recently, in 2001 he got a three-month conditional sentence and four months probation for possession for the purpose of trafficking. Later that same year, he was charged with breaching that conditional sentence and trafficking. The sentence was terminated and he got an additional 14 days concurrent.
A few months later, in March 2002, he was convicted for possession of property obtained by crime. A jail sentence you might think? Think again. He got a three-month conditional sentence and a year's probation.
Think about that. Only a little less than four months after he was convicted for breaching a conditional sentence, he's given another one. What, did he suddenly get a case of the galloping guilties? A touch of conscience? Realized the error of his ways? Found religion?
Three months later, he was on the receiving end of another conviction for break and enter, and fail to comply with a probation order. Total sentence received, four months. And all of this is in addition to those charges that were dropped or plea bargained away.
This man has refused to pay attention to any probation order, conditional sentencing restriction or bail condition ever imposed. Yet, the courts continue to pretend that by giving him probation they have lived up to their responsibilities.
They haven't, and not by a long shot.
Some of the considerations judges must take into account for sentencing are the protection of the public and the potential for a continuation or repetition of the offence.
This man has proven time and again he will continue his criminal activity and no probation order or conditional sentence will protect the public.
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