A former store security guard and "wheel man" who drove the getaway car for a group of jewelry store robbers in North Vancouver has been sent to jail for six months.
Provincial court judge William Rodgers handed the sentence to 21 year-old Ahmad Shamir Ayoubi of Surrey Friday for his role in the robbery of People's Jewellers in Capilano Mall on Oct. 14, 2010.
During the robbery, four masked men rushed into the store, smashed display cases with screwdrivers and snatched more than $200,000 worth of diamond jewelry and watches.
Three of the robbers escaped, using pepper spray to discourage bystanders from following and ran to a getaway car driven by Ayoubi. One of the robbers, Mouhmmad Sakandari of Burnaby, was tackled by a bystander.
Police eventually arrested four of the robbers involved in the heist, including Ayoubi. The fifth person, the alleged ringleader of the group, was never charged.
Ayoubi is the last of the robbers to go through the courts. Two other adults, Jerry Bui and Mouhmmad Sakandari from Burnaby already received 14-month and nine-month jail sentences respectively for their roles in the heist.
Crown counsel Ron Edwards told the judge Ayoubi, who was working as a security guard at the time of the heist, knew about the plan to rob the jewelry store two weeks before it happened. He was reluctant to get involved, but was pressured by his friends including Sakandari. Ayoubi eventually agreed to drive his sister's car as the "wheel man" in the heist. He waited outside in the car while the other robbers went into the jewelry store. But as the group ran out of the store trailing pepper spray and piled into the car, a bus driver noted the licence plate. Ayoubi was arrested soon after the robbery.
Edwards noted Ayoubi didn't get any of the $200,000 in jewelry that was never recovered by police.
He added Ayoubi played the smallest role in the robbery, although it was a serious crime that traumatized a number of people, including a group of toddlers and babies from a mall daycare who were passing by the jewelry store when the heist took place.
Ayoubi's lawyer urged the judge to consider an intermittent sentence to be served on weekends, noting Ayoubi was "unsophisticated in the ways of the world" and had been talked into the scheme by others. "This conduct is completely out of character," he said.
Rodgers agreed Ayoubi didn't take part in the violent heist to the same degree as the others but rejected the idea of him serving his sentence on weekends.
jseyd@nsnews.com
