Fraud over $5,000, Assault with a weapon, Theft over $5,000, Use, trafficking or possession of forged document, Identity fraud (personation), Assault
R. v. B.D.C.
A publication ban applies. The offender is not named.
- Below the Crown's ask
- On release at the time
Sentence and the Crown's position
What the law allows
The offender pleaded guilty to fraud, personation, using forged documents, assault with a weapon and assault, committed while posing as a qualified nurse at two medical facilities in British Columbia, and to theft of cheques from a dental clinic where she worked. The Crown sought sentences totalling between eight and nine years, consecutive to an Ontario sentence she was serving; the defence sought five to six years, concurrent. Associate Chief Justice Holmes imposed an aggregate sentence of seven years, making the assault sentences consecutive because they involved invasive violations of bodily integrity.
In the judge's words
1I conclude that the assault offences should attract consecutive sentences because (without patient consent to nursing treatment by an unqualified person) the offences involved invasive violations of bodily integrity, a very different legally-protected interest from the interests protected by the other offences.
The record
- Convicted of
- Fraud over $5,000 (CC 380(1)(a), 2 counts)
- Assault with a weapon (CC 267(a))
- Theft over $5,000 (CC 334(a))
- Use, trafficking or possession of forged document (CC 368(1), 4 counts)
- Identity fraud (personation) (CC 403, 2 counts)
- Assault (CC 266)
- Prior convictions
- 67 prior convictions1
- At the time of the offence
- On parole1
- Defence asked for
- 5 years in custody1
- Appeal
- Not yet checked
- Counsel
- Crown: A.S. Burton
Defence: G. Garih, A. Glouberman
Sources
- R. v. B.D.C., 2024 BCSC 2435 Court decision, CanLII, December 20, 2024
[66] As I indicated, the Crown submits that the sentences now to be imposed should be served consecutively to the Ontario sentence … is now serving. However, the Crown proposes a third application of the totality principle to reduce the overall length of those combined sentences (12 years for the BC offences plus the seven-year Ontario sentence) from 19 years to between 15 and 16 years. This would mean reducing the aggregate length of the sentences for the BC offences from 12 years to between eight and nine years.
[72] If, as the defence proposes, the BC sentences are all served concurrently, the overall length would be five to six years, which is the longest of the sentences the defence proposes.
[109] The Vancouver and Victoria fraud offences (count 1 on each of those indictments) have a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment. All of the other offences have a maximum penalty of ten years' imprisonment, except that the Victoria offence of assault has a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. None of the offences have minimum penalties.
[91] She committed the offence on the New Westminster indictment while she was on parole for offences of dishonesty.
[47] Ms. … has a lengthy criminal record for fraud and other crimes of dishonesty - the Ontario sentencing judge noted 67 convictions as an adult, in addition to youth convictions.
[123] I conclude that the assault offences should attract consecutive sentences because (without patient consent to nursing treatment by an unqualified person) the offences involved invasive violations of bodily integrity, a very different legally-protected interest from the interests protected by the other offences.
[137] The net effect is that the aggregate length of the sentences I am now imposing for the three indictments is seven years.
- R. v. B.D.C., 2024 BCSC 2435 Court decision, Courts of British Columbia