North Vancouver man gets two-year conditional sentence for knifepoint robberies

A North Shore man responsible for a series of knifepoint robberies at North Vancouver convenience stores, gas stations and fast food outlets over a one-week period in 2020 has received a two-year conditional sentence for the stick-ups.

Oliver Frank Thomas, 29, of North Vancouver, will serve his sentence in the community after pleading guilty to four counts of robbery in North Vancouver provincial court. Judge Joanne Challenger imposed the sentence April 20.

The knifepoint robberies all happened between April 3 and April 11, 2020, most of them in the same Lynn Valley neighbourhood.

Thomas held-up the clerk in the first robbery – the Esso gas station on Mountain Highway – twice in the same day. At 2:30 a.m. Oliver walked in to the station carrying a baseball bat and knife, demanded the clerk open the till and stole some cash, said Crown counsel Ariana Ward. At 10:30 p.m. that same night, he returned with a knife while the same clerk was working, took money from the till again, grabbed cigarettes off the shelf and left the store.

The next day, Thomas held up two fast food restaurants. At Papa Johns Pizza in the Lynn Valley Village complex, he “came into the store, went behind the counter and held a knife to the employee’s side,” then opened the till and took money, said Ward. At A&W on Main Street the same day, Thomas went to the drive-thru window and threatened the employee, asking him for cash.

A few days later, on April 8, Thomas walked into the Mountain Market corner store on Mountain Highway and pulled a knife on the owner, telling her to open the till. She refused, and Thomas instead grabbed three folders of lottery tickets, said Ward.

Thomas held up two Chevron gas stations, on Mountain Highway and Main Street – in one case walking into the station just after it had opened in the morning and pointing a knife at the clerk while customers were in the store, before taking off with cash, lottery tickets and cigarettes.

On April 11, Thomas walked into the Subway on East Third Street in North Vancouver and helped himself to cash from the register. “He told the employee that he was having a bad day and needed money from the till,” said Ward.

Court heard earlier that Thomas was eventually nabbed after cashing in a number of the stolen lottery tickets and being identified in store surveillance footage. That led to a search of two homes where lottery tickets, a baseball bat and other evidence was recovered by police.

Thomas later acknowledged what he’d done, telling the author of a pre-sentence report, “It was pretty messed up what I did.”

Defence lawyer David Walsoff said Thomas was in the throes of a drug and alcohol addiction at the time, and was mixing crack cocaine, crystal meth and opioids.

Walsoff added Thomas has no recollection of the offences and has since gone to treatment programs, and has maintained his sobriety and stable employment as a cook in commercial kitchens.

Ward pointed to the fact that holdups of convenience stores and gas stations victimize people who are already vulnerable, often young and working by themselves late at night for low wages.

In handing down her sentence, Challenger described the stick-ups as “unsophisticated.”

She ordered Thomas to obey a curfew between 1 p.m. and 6 a.m. Beyond that, he must remain on Tsleil-Waututh Nation reserve lands except when working, going to school or seeing his children. Challenger also ordered Thomas to take alcohol and drug counselling, Indigenous counselling or Vision Quest spiritual retreats as directed. The conditional sentence will be followed by one year of probation.