A 34-year-old man who broke into a home in the middle of the night while residents were sleeping - then robbed a convenience store while he was on bail for that offence - has been sent to jail for slightly less than two years.
Judge Carol Baird Ellan of the North Vancouver provincial court handed the sentence to Maxwell Edward Whonnock, 34, in addition to the six months he has already spent in jail after Whonnock pleaded guilty to charges of breakand-enter and armed robbery.
Whonnock committed the first break-in on Dec. 10, 2010 when he entered a house on West Fifth Street in North Vancouver through an unlocked door while residents were asleep. The occupants woke to hear liquor bottles being rattled and doors opening and closing on the floor below. They called 9-1-1. Police arrived and caught Whonnock coming out of a patio door with an Xbox in his hands.
He was later released on bail, with conditions to stay away from alcohol and obey a curfew.
Six weeks later, however, Whonnock walked into the 7-11 store on West Third Street at 1: 30 a.m. with a hammer hidden in his jacket. One of the clerks on duty saw him reaching under his shirt and pressed an alarm button. The clerk and a co-worker then hid in the store's walk-in cooler while Whonnock tried to smash a lottery ticket display case. He then went behind the counter and stole cigarettes before leaving the store.
Whonnock's defence lawyer asked the judge for a conditional sentence order, saying his client has struggled with addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine.
The judge said she had some sympathy for Whonnock's difficult background and his goal of getting clean, adding he was "not in his right mind" when he committed the crimes, because he was drunk and high. But she said Whonnock "must repay his debt for these serious offences."
She sentenced him to 30 months in jail, with credit for time already spent in custody.
