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Couple jailed for roles in West Vancouver crime spree

A couple who led West Vancouver police on a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto in January have taken the off-ramp to jail.
West Van police car

A couple who led West Vancouver police on a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto in January have taken the off-ramp to jail.

Jeffrey Alan Paul Loubert, 32, and Rebecca MacDonald, 29, were recently handed jail sentences for their roles in a high-drama crime spree involving robbery, multiple car thefts, dangerous driving and evading police between Lions Bay and West Vancouver Jan. 28.

At one point in that afternoon, police closed down all routes leading out of West Vancouver, resulting in traffic chaos, as they closed in on the pair, who had been spotted twice driving the wrong way on Highway 1.

According to a police report at the time, the crime spree began shortly before noon on Jan. 28 when the Squamish RCMP were alerted to a suspicious looking couple in a Mercedes in Lions Bay. By the time the police arrived, the Mercedes had been ditched and an Oldsmobile was reported stolen.

By the time the couple were spotted in West Vancouver, officers opted to cut off their escape routes rather than be drawn into a car chase. A short time later, a robbery was reported in the 1,000 block of Inglewood Drive where suspects pulled an elderly and partially disabled man from his car and stole his wallet. When the victim’s wife tried to intervene, she was thrown to the ground and her purse was taken, police said at the time.

An hour later, police received a report of a Porsche being stolen from a home on the 900 block of Cross Creek Road. Police called in the RCMP’s Air 1 helicopter, which quickly spotted them. West Van officers tried to head the suspects off on Cypress Bowl Road and deployed a spike belt, which the Porsche ran over. But the suspects still managed to speed off unimpeded.

The helicopter tracked the couple to Whytecliff Park, where they attempted one more robbery before being boxed in on a dead-end road, where West Vancouver officers used their cruiser to pin the Porsche’s driver-side door closed.

Loubert was held in custody for almost nine months after his arrest. In North Vancouver provincial court Monday, he was handed an additional five-month jail sentence, after pleading guilty to multiple charges including theft of three autos, theft of a cellphone, possession of stolen property, robbery, dangerous driving, and resisting a peace officer.

The five-month jail sentence includes credit for time already spent in custody. Loubert will also serve 12 months’ probation when he gets out of jail, with a 12-month ban on driving, orders not to be in the drivers’ seat of any vehicle, take counselling, and pay a $1,600 victim fine surcharge.

MacDonald was sentenced Oct. 6 in Vancouver provincial court after pleading guilty to car theft, robbery, possession of stolen property, theft of a cellphone and resisting a peace officer. She was handed a 12-month jail sentence and 12 months’ probation.

Outside the court, Crown counsel Snover Bains said the crime spree appeared to be drug-fuelled.