Robbers in a violent 2014 home invasion that saw a Lions Bay couple tied up for four hours while two men ransacked their house and a third accomplice siphoned money from their bank and credit card accounts found “comfort and assistance” in a Burnaby basement suite.
Malcolm Jamel Eric Drydgen, a former Burnaby resident, pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court Monday to acting as an accessory after the fact of robbery for harbouring a former girlfriend and her accomplices after a robbery at the home of Tom and Francoise De Pauw on Upper Bayview Road.
At about 1 a.m. on May 27, 2014, masked men entered the Lions Bay home while the couple was in bed, according to court documents.
They tied up Tom De Pauw and restrained his wife, Francoise De Pauw with duct tape and then demanded the combination to a safe in the house that held cash and other items, including a gold necklace, passports and diplomas.
The robbers also took debit and credit cards and demanded PIN numbers, threatening violence if the couple didn’t comply.
While the home invaders stayed in the house, a third person used the cards to withdraw about $3,000 from the De Pauws’ accounts. In total, more than $10,000 was stolen.
Four people were originally charged in the robbery: Drydgen, who was 25 at the time, his then-girlfriend Christine Marie Kessel, 22, Afzal Ismail Desai, 18, and a youth who cannot be named.
Desai pleaded guilty in 2015 to four charges, including break and enter, use of an imitation gun to commit an offence, disguising his face during an offence and theft of a motor vehicle, and was handed a four-year jail sentence.
Kessel was eventually identified as the person who had gone to the bank machines and withdrawn money with the stolen cards. Like Desai, she was originally charged with a number of serious offences, including robbery and unlawful confinement, but in December 2016 she pleaded guilty only to fraud under $5,000 and was given a conditional discharge and 18 months of probation.
During the investigation, police determined Kessel and Tom De Pauw had had a sexual relationship before the home invasion, according to court documents.
Kessel testified their relationship had begun on an internet site when she was about 20.
“She sought a sexual relationship with a man in return for money, and Mr. De Pauw was a willing participant,” states a June 28 ruling by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden.
The relationship had ended after a “falling out,” and, soon after, someone painted the words “sugar daddy” on the Pauws’ driveway, according to court documents.
Tom De Pauw told police he thought they had been painted by Kessel.
That connection led police to a Burnaby basement suite where Kessel was living with Drydgen, her new boyfriend.
In the garbage in the back alley behind the house, investigators found items connected to the home invasion, including receipts from banks where money had been withdrawn using the De Pauws’ credit cards and bank cards in the early morning hours of May 27, 2014.
Drydgen, who already had a lengthy criminal record and was on probation for his part in a violent 2008 home invasion in Vancouver at the time, was originally charged with participating in the Lions Bay robbery.
He went to court on those charges this past May.
Kessel, whose relationship with Drydgen ended about a month and a half after the home invasion, testified against him.
She said she and Drydgen had needed money and she had told Drydgen De Pauw was “someone who had money.”
“She said that their discussions led to a decision by the accused to break into the De Pauws’ residence in Lions Bay,” states Bowden’s June ruling.
Defence lawyer Donald Sorochan, however, argued Kessel’s testimony was questionable, especially since no forensic evidence linked Drydgen to any items taken from the Lions Bay house.
He also argued police hadn’t properly investigated another person whose DNA was found on the roll of duct tape used in the home invasion.
Sorochan argued investigators were out to get Drydgen because of his criminal record and his connection to the earlier Vancouver home invasion.
“Really what they did was put blinders on,” Sorochan said at Drydgen’s sentencing Monday.
In the end, an agreement was struck to go ahead with only the accessory-after-the-fact charges against Drydgen.
In a joint submission, Sorochan and Crown prosecutor Brian MacFarlane agreed he should be sentenced to time served and two years of probation.
“While it was a very serious crime, it appears the evidence would suggest Mr. Drydgen’s only participation was after the fact of the robbery,” Bowden said Monday. “In the end result, I am satisfied that the sentence proposed is appropriate in the circumstances of this case and the circumstances of the offender.”
Cornelia Naylor is a reporter with Burnaby Now, a Glacier Community Media publication and sister paper to the North Shore News. Go to burnabynow.com to read more.
