R. v. Peters Date:, 2013 BCPC 167

Citation: R. v. Peters Date: 20130514 2013 BCPC 0167 File No: 223544-1-V Registry: Vancouver IN THE PROVINCIAL COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA REGINA v. BRADLEY JAMES PETERS EXCERPTS FROM PROCEEDINGS REASONS FOR SENTENCE OF THE HONOURABLE JUDGE D. St. PIERRE Counsel for the Crown: D. Porte Counsel for the Defendant: V. Michaels Place of Hearing: Vancouver , B.C. Date of Judgment: May 14, 2013

[ 1 ] THE COURT: Mr. Peters is being sentenced for an offence that was committed almost two years ago, June 15, 2011, the notorious so-called Stanley Cup Riot. The offence is that he participated in a riot, took

part in a riot, and that is contrary to s. 65 of the Criminal Code . [ 2 ] MR. PORTE: That's correct, Your Honour. [ 3 ] THE COURT: Yes. Okay, and so Mr. Peters comes before the court in a slightly different position than most of the young people that have come before the courts on these matters in that he is not a first-time offender. He was on bail at the time of this offence. [ 4 ] The Crown takes the position that Mr. Peters is more closely situated to the offender named Dickinson who was previously sentenced by Judge Low.

They say the appropriate range of penalty in this case, given his circumstances and his participation in the offence, is in the 12 to 16 months range, but in light of Mr. Peters' guilty plea, the sentence should be one of 12 months in jail and that should be followed by a period of probation. [ 5 ] The defence takes the position that they are not seeking a conditional sentence order, but suggest that if I have taken into account the appropriate principles of sentencing, and in light of the Court of Appeal recent decisions, and Mr.

Peters' involvement that is not as serious as many of the people that have come before the courts, that an appropriate sentence of four months in jail is appropriate. [ 6 ] Again, Mr. Porte for the Crown notes that very few rioters have come before the court with criminal records.

Again, he was on bail at the time of this offence. [ 7 ] His record, his only adult conviction is an assault charge, simple assault, and that was in Abbotsford, and the disposition date was June 27, 2011, but it was from an offence date which -- and that was just a couple of weeks after the Stanley Cup riot, but the offence date was March 14, 2011, and so he was on bail for that offence at the time of this matter. [ 8 ] The condition that was ostensibly breached at the time of this offence is the condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour. [ 9 ] I accept the principles, the major principles of sentencing.

The Crown has suggested that the participation in any riot is a serious offence. [ 10 ] Paragraph 27 of the Peepre decision from our Court of Appeal says as much: the participation is contextual. Mr. Peters, along with all the other rioters, share a responsibility for everyone's actions during that horrific event. It was, and there is no real purpose served by forever coming up with new hyperboles to describe how bad this thing was, but it was bad.

It was hours and hours of complete lawlessness and anarchy on the streets of Vancouver, and anyone who has seen those videos cannot help but have a visceral reaction to how the city essentially looked like it was burning. [ 11 ] Again, general deterrence and denunciation are the primary considerations in these kinds of cases. [ 12 ] The participation of Mr. Peters in this event was captured on the photos and videos and included pictures of Mr. Peters kicking at the Canada Post window several times. The window had apparently already been broken. [ 13 ] He is near, you can see Mr.

Peters, he has got his Canucks' jersey on and he is wearing a backpack, and the police line is visible sort of in the background, not too far away, but it just underscores, I suppose, the sense that all of these people that were involved in the riot just did not feel any compulsion to comply with the law or keep the peace, because they felt they were anonymous in this large mobbing riot. [ 14 ] He is seen later kicking at police cars. He is heard at one time yelling just generally, "flip it", and then he helps to try and flip a police car, to turn over a police car, and it is unsuccessful at that point.

There was a third incident where he attempted briefly to overturn a couple of Smart cars. [ 15 ] But if you were to look at his behaviour as far as comparing it to others involved in the riots and who have already been sentenced, you could not classify it as being on the higher end of the seriousness scale. However, that is in the general context of saying that everyone, no matter what their involvement and no matter what their behaviour in the context of a riot, it is still described as serious.

You simply have to try to place individual behaviours along some kind of line in order to try to come up with an appropriate sentence. [ 16 ] The Court of Appeal has come down and rendered two decisions that are helpful to these courts, because they are the first ones that have scrutinized sentencing from the Provincial Court to determine whether the Provincial Court sentencing judges are applying the appropriate principles and considering whether to interfere with certain sentences there. [ 17 ] One of them is Peepre , and Mr.

Peepre came before the court without a criminal record, but his involvement was quite serious, including an incident of violence where Mr. Peepre was, in addition to his participation in the riot, he assaulted a man who was described as a Good Samaritan. While that man was on the ground, Mr. Peepre punched him in the face and that person required hospital treatment for cuts and a concussion. [ 18 ] In any event, that young man received -- he was only 20 at the time of the offence as well. I believe Mr. Peters was only 20 years old at the time of the offence. Mr.

Peepre received a 60-day sentence, incarcerated in a jail, but that was to be served intermittently. [ 19 ] The Court of Appeal went on to describe that incidences and conduct involving incitement of others, engaging in other additional criminal activity, other than participation, such as assaulting other people, particularly police officers, arson, wearing a mask, committing multiple acts in multiple locations, should lead to a more serious and longer sentence. [ 20 ] They also cautioned against imposing sentences that were unwarranted in their severity, and in that case the Crown had argued

for a more severe sentence of about nine months of conventional jail sentence. But the court there in Mr. Peepre's case found that the sentencing judge had not afforded unwarranted leniency, and was it quite properly suggested courts ought not to do in the Loewen decision. They also cautioned about the use to be made of pre-amendment, riot-related sentencing decisions, and with pre-amendment, I am talking about the 1996 Criminal Code amendments requiring, among others, restraint by the courts in sentencing mostly young men to jail.

Those pre-amendment cases, while not irrelevant, must be considered with some caution, and the Court of Appeal said as much in Peepre . [ 21 ] Here there are some aggravating factors obviously. There is Mr. Peters' involvement over a length of time. I believe we kind of settled on about an hour and a half or something like that. The participation, there was a number of locations where he took part and committed a number of acts. There was the attack on the police vehicle.

He was on bail at the time. [ 22 ] There is a suggestion that, in addition to the general deterrence that is the primary factor, that specific deterrence is a factor in this case as well, considering Mr. Peters' record. [ 23 ] Mr. Michaels, on Mr. Peters' behalf, suggests that four months' jail would meet the principles of sentencing and that specific deterrence is less important here, given the amount of time that has gone by since the time of the offence and today's date, which is almost two years. We are talking about a young man who, no doubt and by all accounts, has changed dramatically.

A lesson has been learned. [ 24 ] I should just refer briefly to the kind of person that Mr. Peters has been described as now, which bears remarkably little resemblance to the person that we saw on the video or the person that you see if you look at simply a conviction

summary report, [material removed]. [ 25 ] He is now 21 or 22 now? [ 26 ] THE ACCUSED: Twenty-two. [ 27 ] THE COURT: Twenty-two now, and there are letters, one from his mother who is a registered psychiatric nurse, who describes him as being somebody who -- he is just simply a different man now. His work ethic is impeccable, she says.

He has worked two full-time jobs for almost two years now. [ 28 ] There is an Abbotsford School District teacher who writes a letter saying that she has been impressed with him and how he has handled himself since the time of the riot, that he has fully acknowledged his role and has not attempted to downplay it. The reaction that he faced from society at large and from family and friends made a deep impression.

Obviously that is easy to understand. [ 29 ] The public and media scrutiny that the people charged with rioting have had to face is enormous, and the courts have talked about what an impact that would make, as far as in terms of general deterrence and specific deterrence, for that matter. [ 30 ] There is a young woman who used to date Mr. Peters. She says that since participating in the riots, she has seen him acknowledge that his actions were wrong.

He took full responsibility and he is trying to move forward with his life in a positive way. [ 31 ] I note from the other material filed that he has not tried to blame anyone for this matter, that he has taken responsibility for his actions. [ 32 ] There is his older brother who was once an associate pastor at the Eastgate Church where he is attending now, has seen a positive change in him in the last year.

He has come around to church apparently and has been personally baptised by his brother. [ 33 ] There are other people who -- there are too many letters to refer to, but all of them have attested to the fact that he has -- they have witnessed transformations in him, that he has made conscious efforts to amend and makes time for his family now, and is an attentive and patient and loyal young man. That he does volunteer work, he helps his mom out at home, he holds down these two jobs; one is as an uncertified carpenter and one, quite notably, is as a caregiver to a teenage autistic girl.

That he works full-time during the day, and at night he attends to take care of this young autistic girl, and has been described in his role in that capacity as being well loved by this young girl and very good at his job. [ 34 ] There is the aunt who works in a community resource agency, works with multi-barrier and special populations, and she also says she has witnessed considerable growth and maturity in Brad, particularly with respect to his work and this special needs girl that he works for. [ 35 ] His grandfather writes and, as typical of a grandfather, does not approve at all of the behaviour that Mr.

Peters engaged in, in that riot, but believes that that behaviour is an example of who Bradley was and not who he is now or will be in the future. That he has matured greatly since the riot, understands what he did was wrong, and does not believe that he will ever use violence as an expression of anger or as a funnel of adrenaline again. [ 36 ] All of these letters again paint a picture of a person who is a much different character than the one that was involved in this matter.

The courts and scientists and everybody who has ever raised young men know that they change dramatically from the ages of late teenagehood to early adulthood, and Mr. Peters is a prime example of that. I mean, I have no reason to disbelieve that in the last couple of years he has led an exemplary life. [ 37 ] So what do you do with a young man like that? He has got to be, and he realizes, and he has got to face the colloquial music. He has got to face the consequences for his involvement in this matter.

Yet we are two years out now and he is a much changed person since that time. [ 38 ] He has made it known through his counsel and through the materials filed that he does not want anyone to think, as his father I think had suggested, but he does not want anyone to think that it was anything to do with his upbringing that was the cause for these bad

choices that he was making. That is a mature attitude. That is a much more mature attitude than that of many of the young men that appear in these courts. [ 39 ] Dickinson , he was on bail. He was on bail for a serious personal injury offence; he had kicked a man who was down in the head. To the extent that that -- it is difficult to draw conclusions or similarities from that case to this one, because after the Court of Appeal's decision there was a clear caution to be careful how to use the pre-amendment cases. [ 40 ] Mr. Peters was involved in this matter.

He was not involved in the sense of assaultive behaviour or the kind of -- or arson or looting. It is clear that Mr. Peepre's actions in the riot were worse; there is no doubt of that. Mr. Peepre got 60 days' intermittent, but he had no record. [ 41 ] Mr. Williams, the other fellow who was dealt with by the Court of Appeal, Kennedy Williams, was also a first offender. He was one of the ringleaders in vandalizing, overturning, and burning a GMC truck at the live site on Georgia Street. He was in brazen defiance of the police.

The aggravating factors involved in his case involved his participation in arson-like activities and repeated acts of vandalism. He was a first-time offender. He received a 90-day intermittent sentence. [ 42 ] An intermittent sentence is clearly more lenient than a straight jail sentence. It allows people to continue their employment. It allows them to -- he had a taste of incarceration, but not the kind of -- it is not nearly as serious as a straight jail sentence. [ 43 ] I have also had some consideration of R. v. Lau , which is Judge Harris' decision, November of last year, but simply to try to place Mr.

Peters' actions in context. That young man was involved in a great many more number of actions than Mr. Peters, and was just on a spree of mayhem. It lasted approximately four hours. It was quite extensive. In any event, Judge Harris noted that it was necessary to incarcerate Mr. Lau as penalty for his participation in that matter. [ 44 ] Mr. Lau also was, after the event, while he was on bail for the charges that arose out of his participation, he failed to comply with his undertaking conditions, and that shows a different kind of attitude toward rehabilitation.

It shows a different kind of aptitude towards rehabilitation. [ 45 ] Mr. Peters, on the other hand, has I think, after that event, must have looked himself in the mirror and said, "That is not me and I need to make some amends somehow." [ 46 ] Even though Mr. Lau did not have a criminal history, he had a couple of breaches after the fact, after the riot. Breach of a no-alcohol condition, and that just shows his inability to recognize that he is going down the wrong path.

He received a four-month jail sentence. [ 47 ] I have carefully considered the aggravating factors, including the nature of the offence, the accepted propositions that the actions of a rioter are the actions of all, the individual actions cannot be separated from the context of the major riot. The criminal record here, the fact that Mr.

Peters was on bail at the time on a condition to keep the peace and be of good behaviour and others, and the principles of sentencing that I have already outlined. [ 48 ] But there are also significant mitigating factors, and that includes: his youth; his positive reputation in the community; his employment prospects; his genuine remorse; his employment, not only as a carpenter but as a valued caregiver of a seriously autistic young girl; his willingness to engage in restorative measures; his behaviour and the change that has been exhibited in him over the last two years. [ 49 ] I accept that he is now a different man than he was two years ago.

That is a big factor. It does not absolve him from having to face the penalty, and that is, the Court of Appeal has said, any jail sentence on a young man, especially a young man who I think has not served a custodial sentence before, is a serious sentence that has to be remembered when dealing with these young men. [ 50 ] I find that after consideration of all of the factors, trying to weigh and balance those appropriate factors, the jail sentence that was proposed by Mr. Michaels is appropriate.

Four months in jail is a serious sentence for a 20-year-old who has never faced jail before and who is a changed person from two years ago. Four months is the appropriate sentence. [ 51 ] There will be a period of probation for 15 months, Mr. Peters.

On completion of that sentence you will report to a probation officer where and when as directed. [ 52 ] You will reside where directed by your probation officer and not change that address without written permission of that person. [ 53 ] You are not to possess any weapons as defined in s. 2 of the Criminal Code . [ 54 ] You will perform 75 hours of community work service, and that is to be completed at the direction and satisfaction of your probation officer.

That is within the first 12 months of that order. [ 55 ] Also within the first 12 months of that order, under s. 737(3), the victim fine surcharge is enhanced and you will be paying a $2,000 victim fine surcharge, and that is payable in the first 12 months as well. [ 56 ] Anything else? [ 57 ] MR. PORTE: Your Honour, the Crown directs stays of proceedings on Counts 2, 3, and 4. [ 58 ] THE COURT: Two, three, and four. Thank you, Mr. Porte. [ 59 ] MR. PORTE: Thank you. [ 60 ] MR. MICHAELS: Thank you, Your Honour.

[ 61 ] THE COURT: Yes. Mr. Peters, you know, no judge likes to send any young person to jail, especially one who has exhibited the changes that you have had. You earned it unfortunately, but I really hope that you continue down the path that you are on. [ 62 ] THE ACCUSED: Thank you, Your Honour. [ 63 ] THE COURT: Good luck to you. (REASONS CONCLUDED)