A preliminary hearing is underway in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops for two men accused of murder in the shooting death of a 24-year-old man in Blind Bay.

Nick Larson, 24, died on June 1, 2011, following what RCMP said was a targeted attack stemming from a dispute between two groups of men several hours earlier. In July 2014, Kelowna’s major crime section announced it arrested two men.

Williams Lake resident Jeremy Wayne Davis, 25, and Jordan Larry Barnes, a 28-year-old from Mission, each face a single count of second-degree murder.

The trial is set to begin on March 7.

Police said Larson, 24, was shot while travelling as a passenger in a friend’s vehicle on a Blind Bay road.

Police said multiple bullets were fired at the car in which Larson travelled.

The Crown has abandoned its trial against a former log-home builder alleged to have operated a “chop shop” for firearms after a B.C. Supreme Court justice ruled RCMP made too many errors in its investigation.

Justice Hope Hyslop ruled yesterday that RCMP breaches of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms during the investigation were too numerous and serious to allow evidence against Charles Patrick — including guns and ammunition seized after a raid — to be admitted.

Patrick was charged with eight weapons-related offences.

The Crown opened the trial in September by recounting a number of seizures made by Mounties.

Police pulled over Patrick’s pickup in December 2013, finding a loaded sawed-off shotgun inside his jacket.

That evening, they raided his home, where the Crown said a number of other modified weapons were found and seized.

Crown prosecutor Frank Caputo said police found another sawed-off shotgun, a shortened rifle, tools to modify guns and “ammo all over the place.”

At a press conference following the raid, RCMP displayed the guns for reporters and said the operation was gang-related.

While Hyslop acknowledged unlawful firearms are a major concern for Canadian society, she said police errors were too serious to allow the evidence.

Breaches included initial questioning of Patrick when he was pulled over; failing to allow him adequate time to call a lawyer after arrest; failure to have a complete copy of a search warrant for the raid on Patrick’s residence while he was not home; and contradictory facts in the information police provided to a judge to obtain the search warrant.

Patrick was at one time married to Maxine Patrick. For almost 10 years, beginning in 1994, she was the office manager of the Kamloops Blazers.

She defrauded the organization of almost $1 million over that period.

Patrick operated Patrick Log Homes in Kamloops during that time.

He was named as a defendant in a civil suit filed by the Blazers.

Six years after a Kamloops woman was sexually assaulted at gunpoint in a North Shore park, a DNA match has landed a suspect behind bars.

Taylor James Howard Matchett was arrested yesterday in Edmonton. A Canada-wide warrant was issued for the 27-year-old on Wednesday after his DNA came back as a match for a 2009 sex assault in Kamloops.

“We just recently had a match on him,” Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Cheryl Bush told KTW.

“We had a suspect DNA but, until you get a match on it, you can’t identify a suspect.”

On Nov. 11, 2009, a 25-year-old woman told police she was walking home along Tranquille Road when she noticed a car drive past her multiple times. She told investigators the driver eventually pulled over and offered her a ride.

She accepted, police said at the time, and the driver drove to McArthur Island, pulled out a gun and sexually assaulted her.

The woman managed to get away and call police.

Machete is facing charges of sexual assault with a weapon and use of an imitation firearm in commission of an offence.

Bush said he is in custody and is being returned to Kamloops for his first court appearance.

Jason Robertson (Facebook)

Defence lawyers are attempting to have a high-profile police seizure last year of weapons, drugs and stolen electronics ruled an illegal search.

Jason and Sarah Robertson faced nearly 50 criminal charges following a police raid of their homes in Sahali, Westsyde and Batchelor Heights in May 2014.

Following the raid, Kamloops RCMP Supt. Brad Mueller showed reporters 40 firearms, bags of marijuana and cocaine and what police said were thousands of dollars in stolen electronics.

Mounties said the operation was gang-related and Hells Angels stickers were displayed in the press conference. The Crown also said at an earlier court hearing that police found $50,000 in cash inside the Sahali home.

Following 18 months of legal manoeuvring, a two-week trial is now scheduled to begin in January, much of it expected to be taken up by a number of defence challenges to the legality of search warrants.

The couple now also faces far fewer charges — winnowed down to 18 by a preliminary court ruling and the Crown’s narrowing of the case. While 10 ounces of cocaine were seized during the raids, all of the drug charges have been withdrawn by Crown.

Charges now include possession of illegal weapons and possession of stolen property.

Prosecutor Evan Goulet said during a pre-trial conference Thursday that the Crown still intends to call an expert police witness during the trial, who will testify to the connection between stolen property and drug trafficking.

Defence lawyers are also seeking more Crown disclosure regarding a confidential informant used by police prior to the raid.

A Kamloops lawyer was part of an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada that found the country’s human smuggling law is too broad, threatening to criminalize refugee families or friends who help each other.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled four Sri Lankan men on board the Ocean Lady in 2009 — when it came to the British Columbia coast with a sister ship, both loaded with hundreds of people without documentation who claimed refugee status — will have another trial.

The federal Crown brought charges against four crewmen aboard the Ocean Lady. One of those men was represented by Kamloops lawyer and Thompson Rivers University professor Micah Rankin.

Lawyers for the four men were seeking to have a section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act ruled unconstitutional.

“The majority of passengers each paid, or promised to pay, $30,000 to $40,000 for the voyage,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said. “The migrants [four crewmen charged] are said to have been responsible for organizing the asylum seekers in Indonesia and Thailand prior to boarding the freighter, and serving as the chief crew of the ship on the voyage to Canada.”

The court ordered the four men to stand trial with the law narrowed so it does not capture people helping family members, for example.

“The purpose of s. 117  is to criminalize the smuggling of people into Canada in the context of organized crime and does not extend to permitting prosecution for simply assisting family or providing humanitarian or mutual aid to undocumented entrants to Canada,” McLachlin said.

The ruling narrows the offence so that it must be done for profit.

“That’s probably the effect of this,” Rankin said.

“If you showed up with your family and assisted them or shared a car and some of the gas, you could have been prosecuted,” Rankin said of the law overturned by the court.

“It was really quite Draconian.”

A Kamloops man who made a Facebook confession to an undercover police officer that he fired 11 bullets at a romantic rival — one of which struck the man in the right butt cheek — has been handed a jail sentence of more than four years.

However, because he has spent 18 months in custody since his arrest, Jarrel Dick has less than two years left to serve.

The 30-year-old pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops yesterday to aggravated assault, using a firearm in commission of an offence and break and enter.

Court heard Dick became the subject of an RCMP undercover operation in December 2013. Police were trying to figure out who was responsible for a recent rash of break-and-enters in which guns were stolen.

A tipster alerted investigators to Dick’s Facebook page and said he was trafficking stolen firearms.

An undercover officer added Dick as a friend on the social-networking site and began to inquire about purchasing weapons.

Crown prosecutor Monica Fras said the two had multiple conversations over a period of months leading up to April 2014.

On April 7, 2014, Dick sent the undercover officer a message telling him to read the news.

The officer responded by sending Dick a link to a KTW story about a shooting outside an apartment complex in the 1900-block of Tranquille Road.

Dick replied with an admission, which the undercover officer followed up with a phone call.

“They had a conversation in which Mr. Dick admitted to being the shooter at 1900 Tranquille Rd. and stated, ‘I shot him in the right ass cheek,’ and that he was going to finish the job, but thought this would start a war, so he left the guy lying there, but that he should have finished it,” Fras said.

Kamloops Mounties responded to the Tranquille Road apartment building at about 3 a.m. on April 7, 2014, after residents reported gunshots.

Investigators found 11 bullet holes in the glass of the building’s front entrance and blood on an apartment door led them to the victim, who was eventually treated for minor injuries.

Three weeks later, Dick told the undercover operator he opened fire on the victim as he was punching a code into the building’s entrance system.

“He was trying to punch those buttons and bullets were flying off those keys,” Dick said.

“I lit him up.”

Dick also told the undercover cop he had broken into an RCMP officer’s home and stolen “all his gear, including handcuffs and a radio.”

The home of a retired Mountie had been broken into on April 23. Stolen was a rifle, some jewelry, electronics and a sword.

Dick was arrested days later and found to be in possession of the stolen rifle.

He was released on bail and a plan was hatched by police to set up a lunch meeting between Dick and the undercover officer.

He was arrested at the meeting and has been in custody since.

After his arrest, Dick admitted to the shooting.

Fras said Dick and the victim had been arguing about a girl.

“This is a serious, premeditated aggravated assault,” she said, asking for a jail sentence in the range of four to five years.

“[The victim] was shot from behind in the behind. That is not a threatening position.

“Mr. Dick showed up to a fight about a girl with a gun. He planned to shoot that gun — and he did,” Fras said.

Defence lawyer Sheldon Tate described the shooting as a warning.

“Mr. Dick is not a bad shot,” Tate said.

“He would have been able to shoot and kill [the victim] if he had wished to do so. These shots were essentially a warning.”

Fras took exception to that characterization of the shooting.

“The Crown submits that 11 shots is not a warning shot,” she said.

“This was an intentional attack. It was a dangerous one and it did put the public in danger.”

Tate said corrections officials have described Dick, who is serving his first stint behind bars, as an exemplary inmate.

He urged B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Josephson to hand down a sentence that would see Dick spend less than two additional years in custody — thus keeping him in the provincial correctional system.

Tate said Dick would likely be “drafted” into organized crime if he were to be sent to a federal penitentiary.

Josephson sided with Tate, sentencing Dick to four years and two months behind bars, meaning he will spend an additional 22 months in jail after being given one-and-a-half-to-one credit for time served.

He also ordered Dick to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database and banned him from possessing firearms for life.

A murderer on parole in Kamloops escaped a criminal conviction yesterday after being busted last year driving while prohibited.

On Dec. 1, 1994, Ian Ross Mooring and an accomplice, Ronnie James Woods, stormed a Mission jewelry store, Gold’N Things, armed with loaded shotguns and demanded two employees fill a bag with jewelry.

Both employees were shot.

Roger Kimberley died and Pierre Choquette survived life-threatening injuries, but lost his right arm.

Mooring and Woods were handed life sentences, with Mooring ordered to serve 17 years behind bars before becoming eligible for parole.

Mooring, 52, has been on full parole for the past four years.

Last year, he was handed a 90-day driving ban after failing a roadside screening.

Because he is on parole, he was held for 30 days in temporary detention before being released back into the community.

On Sept. 5, 2014, a Kamloops Mountie stopped Mooring’s vehicle on Barnhartvale Road.

Mooring was still bound by the prohibition and he was arrested for driving while prohibited, then held again for 30 days in temporary detention.

Calling it “a very unique situation,” Crown prosecutor Frank Caputo accepted a plea from Mooring to the lesser offence of driving without a licence, which is not a criminal offence.

“This almost never happens that we take a plea to the lesser included [offence],” Caputo said in court.

“He is not getting a lesser sentence because he is already serving a life sentence.

“On the contrary, Crown is balancing the public-interest factors on the grounds that he has already done 30 days for this.”

Mooring, who drives logging trucks for a living, was ordered to pay nearly $2,000 in fines.

Despite a plea to be home for the holidays, a judge has ordered a Kamloops man who harassed his ex with text messages and Facebook friend requests to spend Christmas behind bars.

Kristopher Hrynczuk pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday to one count of criminal harassment and two breach charges

Court heard the 38-year-old began harassing his ex on Sept. 19.

A judge in Alberta barred him last year from having contact with her.

“She received two separate friend requests from Mr. Hrynczuk on Facebook,” Crown prosecutor Katie Bouchard said. “She declined the first request and ignored the second.”

Those friend requests were followed two days later by a rash of activity — 32 texts and 14 missed calls on Sept. 21 alone.

“The messages varied in length, talked about loving [the victim] and asking her not to call the police,” Bouchard said.

That evening, Hrynczuk showed up at the home in which his ex was staying and was turned away at the door. A warrant was issued for Hrynczuk’s arrest and a charge was laid two weeks later, but he could not be found by police.

On Oct. 26, court heard, Hrynczuk turned up outside his ex’s new residence. She phoned a friend and asked her to call police.

Hrynczuk was arrested on Nov. 16 and has been in custody since.

Defence lawyer Sheldon Tate said his client would like to avoid spending the holidays in a jail cell.

“He asks me if you might consider a sentence that would see him out of custody by Christmas so he can enjoy that with what family remains,” Tate said.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Chris Cleaveley did not oblige, handing Hrynczuk a jail sentence totalling more than 80 days, followed by probation with an order barring him from having contact with his ex.

After being given credit for time served, that means Hrynczuk has 54 days left to serve. The shortest stint he could spend in jail, if he behaves well and is released after two-thirds of the sentence, would see him freed on Jan. 8.

Cleaveley left Hrynczuk with one final warning.

“Remember, when you’re released from jail, no contact,” he said.

Hrynczuk was also ordered to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database and banned from possessing firearms for 10 years.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected a bid by a dangerous offender to have his indeterminate sentence lifted.

Dennis Wayne Bragg was convicted five years ago of sexual assault following  a brutal, violent attack on a prostitute in a rural area outside Kamloops.

While Bragg agreed he fits the designation of dangerous offender, he appealed the indeterminate sentence handed down by the sentencing judge.

The original sentencing judge, Richard Blair, also found Bragg guilty of unlawful confinement, relying on testimony from the woman that Bragg held her by the throat — but didn’t hurt her, restrict her breathing or threaten her — on several occasions when she told him she was finished and wanted to go home.

Court heard evidence Bragg, a building contractor, paid the mentally disabled woman $100 for sexual acts.

But, at some point, the sentencing judge said the crack-addicted woman, who was seven months pregnant at the time, withdrew her consent when events  progressed too far and she was unlawfully held by Bragg in his truck parked off Paul Lake Road.

The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Blair did not err in his assessment of Bragg’s danger to the community.

His past convictions include including three assaults, two assaults with a weapon, one assault causing bodily harm, five sexual assaults, one sexual assault with a weapon and various offences related to impaired driving and possession of narcotic.

The appeal court wrote: “His [Blair’s] conclusion that this dangerous offender could not be managed in the community was reasonable given the nature and extent of the appellant’s criminal record, correctional history, behaviour while on statutory release or bound by court orders, the predicate offence, the experts’ opinions as to his high risk of sexually reoffending, the inability to control his risk factors in the community despite knowledge of what they are and on a consideration of the evidence of his treatability and recent use of anti-libido medication,” the appeal court wrote.

The man accused of shooting a Kamloops RCMP corporal 12 months ago has been ordered by a judge to stand trial.

Security was ramped up at the Kamloops Law Courts on Monday for Kenneth Knutson’s preliminary inquiry.

The 37-year-old is facing five charges, including attempted murder, stemming from the December 2014 shooting of Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud.

Deputy sheriffs stood guard outside Courtroom 3D armed with metal detectors, screening people as they entered the room. An additional two sheriffs were posted inside.

More than 10 police officers, Michaud and Supt. Brad Mueller included, were also at the courthouse for the brief hearing, which was slated to last four days, but wrapped up in just over one hour.

Michaud had been expected to testify at some point in the hearing, but that did not happen.

Instead, he spent the hearing behind closed doors in an interview room adjacent to the courtroom, flanked by high-ranking officers from the Kamloops RCMP detachment.

Crown prosecutor Colin Forsyth called just one witness, RCMP Const. Steve Marcel.

Preliminary inquiries are provincial-court hearings held to determine whether there is enough evidence against an accused to proceed to trial in B.C. Supreme Court. The evidence given at preliminary inquiries is bound by a court-ordered publication ban.

Wearing a red jail-issue sweat suit and seated in the prisoners’ dock, Knutson said nothing during Marcel’s testimony. Sporting a shaved head, Knutson alternated between leaning in and appearing to listen intently and sitting back with his arms folded over his chest.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Michaud was whisked by sheriffs to a back entrance and out of the courthouse.

Michaud was shot in the early-morning hours of Dec. 3, 2014, a short time after he pulled over a white Chrysler Intrepid on Batchelor Drive. At the time, police said the vehicle was associated with an ongoing investigation.

Michaud was struck by two bullets — one in the elbow and one in the torso.

Witnesses told KTW at the time they heard multiple gunshots. One area resident said it sounded like someone had “emptied a clip.”

A backup officer returned fire, police said at the time, but the driver of the Intrepid fled.

Knutson was arrested following a manhunt that lasted more than 12 hours. He was found inside a Batchelor Heights home.

Michaud was underwent multiple emergency surgeries in Kamloops and Vancouver in the weeks that followed the shooting. He is now recovering at home, eyeing a return to work in 2016.

Knutson has elected to be tried in B.C. Supreme Court by a judge and jury. A trial date has not been set, but the matter will return to court on Dec. 21 to set a date.

Six of the eight alleged victims of a former RCMP officer and youth hockey coach facing sexual assault charges dating back more than 30 years have asked the Crown for special accommodations when they testify next month.

Alan Davidson’s four-day preliminary inquiry on eight charges of indecent assault by a male on a male person — as the Criminal Code was worded at the time of the alleged offences — is slated to get underway in Kamloops provincial court on Jan. 5.

The 60-year-old was arrested in March 2014 and charged in connection with the offences, which are alleged to have taken place in Clearwater.

Earlier this year, he was charged with three counts of sexual assault involving young boys in Yorktown, Sask., where he worked as an RCMP constable between 1986 and 1993.

At the time of his arrest in 2014, Davidson was working as a deputy sheriff in Alberta.

Six of the eight accusers have asked for special treatment when they testify.

Crown prosecutor Alexandra Janse said four of the complainants would like to testify by way of closed-circuit television, while two have requested to have a support person present.

An application is expected to be made by the Crown to have those requests granted some time before Jan. 5.

The 16-month investigation into Davidson’s actions came about after a Lower Mainland man went to police in 2012 claiming he had been sexually assaulted by his hockey coach in Clearwater in the early 1980s.

Seven additional complainants came forward during the course of the RCMP investigation.

Davidson was an officer in Saskatchewan from 1982 to 1996 and was posted in Regina, Coronach, Lloydminster, Yorkton and North Battleford.

Police said that, after he left the RCMP, Davidson lived in Camrose and Calgary in Alberta, as well as in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island.

Preliminary inquiries are hearings after which a judge determines whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

Lawyers are set to argue in March whether delays by the Crown should result in acquittal of a boater found guilty following a deadly crash on Shuswap Lake.

The defence already filed an application arguing Crown delays breached the Charter rights  to a fair trial for Leon Reinbrecht.

March 2 and March 3 have been set aside to hear arguments on that challenge.

In October, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan found Reinbrecht guilty of criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

On July 3, 2010, Reinbrecht’s speedboat on Shuswap Lake ran nearly head first into a houseboat piloted by Ken Brown, killing Brown and injuring a number of passengers.

Donegan found Reinbrecht was travelling too fast and recklessly in the moments before he struck the houseboat in the dark.

It took 17 months for charges to be laid against Reinbrecht.

During the course of the trial, court heard investigators wanted to return to Magna Bay at the same time of year to understand the lighting conditions at the time of the collision.

After charges were laid in December 2011, a number of potential trial dates came and went before lawyers went to court in January of this year.

But, at the last minute, Reinbrecht switched lawyers and the trial was pushed back another month.

There were also several delays during the trial itself.

A Kamloops judge has ordered a man to return to his ex-girlfriend a poodle the couple owned before they broke up, along with $420 he spent on a tattoo paid for with her debit card.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand also ordered the man to pay his ex $20,000 for emotional and physical abuse she suffered at his hands.

Identified by their initials — his T.R., hers L.V. — because of the domestic-violence accusations, the couple began dating in 2011 and broke up in 2014.

During a two-day small-claims trial in September, court heard a poodle named Bea was born to one of L.V.’s two dogs in March 2012, while L.V. and T.R. were living     together in Merritt.

Bea’s paperwork has always been in L.V.’s name, but T.R. took Bea when the couple broke up.

Marchand ordered T.R. to return Bea to L.V. promptly on the grounds that all paperwork was in her name and she owned the dog’s parents.

T.R. paid $420 from a shared bank account for a tattoo in May 2014, after he and L.V. had separated.

Marchand ordered that money be returned.

In court, T.R. admitted to physically abusing L.V. Court heard attacks occurred on three occasions and left L.V. emotionally scarred.

L.V. described herself as emotionally vulnerable because of a previous relationship with another man that included physical and sexual abuse.

Marchand ordered T.R. to pay L.V. $20,000 in damages stemming from the abuse.

Pierre Filisetti

The candidate who placed a distant second to Mayor Peter Milobar in last year’s civic election is set to go on trial in provincial court next month on a charge of assault with a weapon.

Pierre Filisetti was charged after a complaint on Jan. 17 this year.

RCMP allege he used pepper spray on Brandon Burke.

In an interview following the charge, Filisetti said he felt threatened on the doorstep of his home. He told KTW he believed the person outside his door was reaching for a weapon during the altercation.

“I was defending myself at 2 a.m. . . . I was frightened. I’m dealing with one person with perhaps not the best of intentions,” Filisetti told KTW in March. “You have to defend yourself.”

The trial is scheduled for a a half-day.

In the November 2014 election, Filisetti picked up nearly 3,000 votes in the mayoral campaign, finishing behind re-elected Peter Milobar and ahead of Ben James and Dallas Paisley.

Sixteen-year-old CJ Fowler was dating 22-year-old Damien Taylor when she was murdered on Dec. 5, 2012. Taylor has been convicted of second-degree murder and will be sentenced on Feb. 15, 2016.

A Terrace man who killed his pregnant teenaged girlfriend while visiting Kamloops in 2012 will learn his fate in the New Year.

In October, a jury spent just five hours deliberating before finding Damien Taylor guilty of second-degree murder in connection to the death of CJ Fowler, his 16-year-old girlfriend.

At trial, court heard the pair was visiting friends in Kamloops in December 2012.

The trial heard Taylor, then 21, and Fowler were inseparable.

Hours before Fowler’s death, the couple found out she was pregnant.

Fowler’s body, with a concrete chunk on her chest, was found by a person walking their dog in Guerin Creek on Dec. 5, 2012.

A pathologist testified she choked to death when her tongue became trapped in her airway, the result of at least one blow to her head and face.

At trial, defence lawyer Don Campbell tried unsuccessfully to convince jurors Taylor was in the midst of a crystal meth-induced psychosis at the time of the murder. He said there was no motive for the killing and the couple was a loving one.

During a brief hearing on Wednesday, Campbell said there are still a couple of issues to be ironed out prior to sentencing.

“We’re going to discuss the parameters of the facts on which we’re going to determine sentence,” he said.

“It seems clear from the jury’s verdict that Mr. Taylor committed the physical act.

“It becomes a little more complex when we discuss mitigating factors. The jury’s verdict made it clear he was not affected by intoxicants when it came to him forming the physical intent.”

Aggravating factors at sentencing will likely include Fowler’s young age, her vulnerability and the fact she was pregnant.

Sentencing will take place during the week of Feb. 15.

A conviction of second-degree murder carries with it an automatic life sentence, with parole eligibility between 10 and 25 years to be set by the sentencing judge.

A Thompson Rivers University international student accused of drunkenly driving his vehicle into a downtown Kamloops office building in April — a crash that caused “exponential” damage, according to the Crown — might not be prosecuted.

Shirish Dwivedi was charged with impaired driving and driving over 0.08 following a single-vehicle collision on
April 11.

The crash caused extensive damage to a building on First Avenue.

At the time, police said alcohol and speed were factors.

Crown prosecutor Katie Bouchard has asked to delay Dwivedi’s trial, which had been slated to take place next month.

Bochard said the Crown needs an expert to testify about the intoxication of Dwivedi at the time of the incident. No such experts are available on the scheduled trial date, she said.

Jeremy Carr, a Victoria-based lawyer who specializes in drunk-driving cases who has been retained by Dwivedi, opposed the application on the grounds his client’s student visa is set to expire early in 2016.

Carr said Dwivedi has finished his program at TRU and has extended his stay in Kamloops — completing work as a co-op student — in part to deal with legal matters.

Bouchard said the Crown would probably not be able to proceed with its prosecution without an expert.

“Not granting an adjournment would likely mean the Crown would not be able to prosecute this file, and it is a serious offence,” she said, estimating the cost of damage to the building at upwards of $100,000.

The matter is scheduled to return to Judge Chris Cleaveley’s courtroom on Thursday.

A B.C. Supreme Court justice has rejected a businessman’s claim that Kamloops developer Casey VanDongen owes him more than $600,000.

Michael Gook filed a lawsuit against VanDongen’s Total Concept Development, claiming he was not paid for a series of real-estate transactions.

Gook claimed he conducted a number of attempted and successful transactions on behalf of Total Concept. Those included properties in Kamloops, Quesnel and Kelowna.

He was paid $3,000 a month on a services contract for a total of $21,000.

Gook sued for more than $600,000, however, for work he performed on a number of real-estate deals based on standard five per cent paid to realtors.

The company argued he was not a realtor and the services contract provided all the compensation to which he was entitled.

Justice Miriam Gropper ruled the services contract covers “every aspect of the work performed by Mr. Gook.”

She dismissed his claim entirely.

“The services contract does not provide for an hourly fee based upon work performed by Mr. Gook,” Gropper wrote.

“It does not provide for a five per cent commission on offers to purchase of real estate and it does not provide for a percentage commission on offers to lease. It does not provide for any commissions.”

A Kamloops woman alleged to have used a fake handgun to rob a mentally disabled man of his glasses before breaking into a nearby home will spend then foreseeable future in a jail cell.

Sarah Califoux-Schneider, 22, is facing seven charges stemming from an alleged brief but violent crime spree in October.

During a bail hearing in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday, court heard a man and woman (alleged to have been Califoux-Schneide)  approached a 52-year-old man with mental disabilities as he walked along Halston Avenue on Oct. 14.

Crown prosecutor Laura Drake said the man was walking home from a pet store, where he had been looking for a Christmas present for his cat.

Drake said the man told police he was approached by two people, one of whom was armed with a handgun.

“One of them said, ‘What have you got for me?'” Drake said.

“He told them that he had nothing except for his cowboy hat, his Cheezies and his glasses.”

Drake said the two attackers then beat the pedestrian in the middle of the street, kicking him in the head repeatedly, before taking his glasses and running away.

The prosecutor said the woman then went to a nearby apartment building and began banging on the door. Drake said she demanded cash from a resident and was told to try next door.

Drake said the woman then kicked in the door of the next apartment unit and was confronted by a resident, who knocked the imitation pistol from her hands.

The woman then fled, Drake said, but not before smashing the window of a vehicle parked outside.

Police showed up a short time later and Chalifoux-Schneider was taken into custody.

Drake said the robbery victim was shaken by the incident.

“He is quite a low-functioning individual and this event had a very severe impact on him,” she said.

Defence lawyer Michelle Stanford said her client was using drugs at the time and has since sobered out in jail. She said Chalifoux-Schneider would like to enter rehab in the Lower Mainland and then move in with her parents in Kamloops.

Judge Stephen Harrison disagreed.

“The offences alleged are serious and the Crown case is strong,” he said.

Chalifoux-Schneider is due back in court on Dec. 21.

A Kamloops man who in 2013 was the subject of an investigation by a national anti-terrorism unit has been ordered to spend the next six weeks in jail for breaching his curfew.

Tristan Fernandez, 19, pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday to breach of probation after he violated conditions imposed by a judge following a 2012 house fire he admitted to setting on purpose.

In 2012, when he was 16, Fernandez pleaded guilty to arson and break-and-enter charges stemming from a house fire that killed a family’s pet dog.

At the time, court heard Fernandez broke into a Clearwater Avenue home to steal a gaming console. Before he left, he set the house ablaze by lighting cologne-soaked towels on fire.

Despite his youth, Fernandez was sentenced as an adult and ordered to serve 18 months in jail followed by three years of probation — the terms by which he is still bound.

In November 2013, the Crown had Fernandez’s probation conditions tightened after he popped up on the radar of the RCMP’s national-security enforcement team.

The anti-terrorism unit searched Fernandez’s home, turning up weapons and a list of locations of Greyhound bus terminals.

Fernandez has a criminal record dating back to 2011, when he was jailed four months for sexual assault. He also has convictions for uttering threats and multiple breaches.

On Nov. 30, police were called to a Kamloops home after a woman reported a number of men banging on her door and running around her house. When officers arrived, Fernandez was found on the property.

Fernandez was arrested at about 11 p.m. — two hours after his probation curfew of 9 p.m.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Stephen Harrison sentenced Fernandez to 45 days in jail.

A former junior hockey player who beat his girlfriend in a what a judge called a ”shocking” attack in April — leaving her with broken teeth — has avoided jail.

Isaac Willard was instead handed 75 days of house arrest and ordered to pay more than $6,600 in restitution to cover his victim’s medical expenses.

Willard, 23, had no criminal record on April 17, when he went to a Chase pub with friends to watch a playoff hockey game.

Crown prosecutor Monica Fras said Willard’s then-girlfriend showed up at about 11 p.m., noting the pair stayed until the pub closed at 1 a.m.

Walking to Willard’s home, Fras said, the former hockey star became irritable during normal conversation. Fras said he began repeating himself and then told his girlfriend to “f–k off.”

She began trailing him as they walked, court heard, until he turned around and grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to the ground.

Willard held her on the ground, punching her in the face and kicking her in the ribs. A neighbour heard the woman’s screams and called 911.

Fras said the victim was left with injuries to her nose and right ear, as well as several broken teeth.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell said Willard played hockey at a high level since the age of eight and began abusing alcohol as a teenager.

For his part, Willard apologized.

“I’m sorry to her and the family,” he said, not turning to face the victim and her relatives seated in the first row of the Kamloops courtroom gallery on Thursday.

“I don’t know what happened. She’s a really good person and I really messed up.”

Provincial court Judge Stephen Harrison called the attack “shocking” and had harsh words for Willard.

“It was a particularly nasty assault that you embarked on for no reason,” he said.

“It turns out that the only thing she shouldn’t have been doing was being in your presence — but she didn’t know that, did she?”

Harrison sentenced Willard to 75 days of house arrest, followed by an 18-month probation term with orders barring him from having contact with the victim and from consuming alcohol.

In addition, Willard was ordered to pay $6,600 in restitution and to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database. He will also be bound by a 10-year firearms ban.

Willard played with the Chase Heat in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League in the 2011-2012 season, amassing 16 points and 28 penalty minutes in 36 games. He also played one game for the Chase Chiefs, the Heat’s predecessor, in the 2009-2010 KIJHL season.