A British Columbia man who waited in the parking lot for police after robbing a local Mac’s store will spend two years in jail.
Wallace Young pleaded guilty to robbery, wearing a disguise during an offence and theft under $5,00 in the bizarre case his lawyer described as a cry for help.
Young arrived in Alberta just two days before the Dec. 16 robbery. That same day he started doing contract work with a snow removal company.
Around 7 a.m. that morning Young was driving a company truck when he suddenly took off with the vehicle and never came back. Young’s co-workers reported the truck stolen, but it was only a few hours later at 11 a.m. when Young walked into the Mac’s store on Boudreau Road opposite Sturgeon Community Hospital.
Young came in with a balaclava covering his face and produced a note reading, “Give me all the money this is no joke.” The clerk, who was working alone, complied with the demand and handed over less than $100 from the till.
Young started to walk out, but when he reached the door he turned around, removed the balaclava and told the clerk to call police. When police arrived a few minutes later Young was sitting outside the store with the money laid out in front of him. He was not armed and surrendered immediately to police.
Young’s lawyer Charles Davison said the incident was the last desperate act of someone who wanted to be jailed.
“Clearly someone who commits a robbery then sits outside and waits for the police to come is trying to get help.”
Young, who began crying during the sentencing hearing, agreed with Davison and described a series of desperate attempts to get help before the half-hearted robbery.
He said he had attended nine different recovery centres in British Columbia before trying to get arrested there. He described two occasions where he shoplifted from stores in the Lower Mainland only to have either store security or the local police refuse to arrest him.
Young said he took the trip to Alberta in the hopes of finding help for his addiction and getting away from a girlfriend as well as other influences encouraging him to drink.
“I took the first bus to the first big city that I knew, which was Edmonton.”
Both the Crown and defence argued for a two-year sentence that would allow Young to take advantage of alcohol treatment programs in the federal prison system.
Several cases in Alberta have established that a base sentence for any convenience store robbery should be three years, but Davison argued given the five-and-a-half months Young had already spent in custody a two-year sentence with no credit for time served was appropriate.
Judge Jeanne Burch agreed with the proposal and told Young despite the bizarre circumstances robbery was a serious crime.
“Robbery involves the threat of violence and for that reason they are much more serious than simple thefts.”
Davison asked Burch to consider a recommendation on the sentence that would see Young serve his time somewhere in British Columbia, in a facility with alcohol treatment programs.
Later in the sentencing Young blurted out that he would like to serve his time at the Bowden institution in central Alberta.
Burch said she would make both recommendations, but told Young to bring up his concerns with staff from Corrections Canada, because her recommendations are not binding on the department.
Burch also added a 10-year weapons ban to the sentence and required Young to submit a sample to the national DNA database.
