Teenaged arsonist sentenced to 2 years for townhouse blaze

A troubled 18-year-old woman who started a fire that destroyed four units in a Penticton townhouse complex was sentenced Monday to another two years in jail — time the judge hopes will be used to finally stabilize her mental health.

The new time is in addition to the 10 months Sydney Leer has already spent in custody since her arrest Oct. 16, 2016, the night she lit a fire in the basement of the Cascade Gardens townhouse on Penticton Avenue she shared with her mother.

“I do not have the authority to direct Ms. Leer to serve her sentence in a psychiatric institution; I wish I could,” Judge Greg Koturbash said in his reasons for judgement.

“I trust the correctional system will place her in an institution that has a strong psychiatric support where she can receive the necessary care and treatment.”

The judge also suggested, however, that Leer had been let down by the regular health-care system.

“Name one of the largest providers of mental health (services) in this province. If you guessed the criminal justice system and our jails, you guessed right,” said Koturbash.

“It remains a constant challenge for those involved in the criminal justice system in our de facto roles as mental health workers to ensure those struggling with mental illness are treated fairly and appropriately by the system.”

Court heard previously that Leer has been diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder — characterized as an inability to regulate emotions — and had spent two days in the psychiatric ward at Penticton Regional Hospital a week before the fire.

On the day of the fire, she was taken back to the hospital by police, but released after only a few hours by a doctor who concluded in a discharge report that “she may very well be headed for legal problems… due to her poor behaviour, entitlement, and lack of responsibility for her actions.”

“I am sure some will criticize the doctor for releasing Ms. Leer from the hospital,” said Koturbash, who nonetheless noted his courtroom was not the place to second-guess the doctor with incomplete information.

“Furthermore, it is important to point out that in Canada it is very difficult to keep someone in hospital against one’s will,” the judge added.

Leer was originally set to receive her sentence in March, but the hearing was delayed several times due to ongoing concerns about her mental health.

Still, multiple doctors who examined her determined she was “not suffering from any sort of disorder that would deprive her from appreciating the nature and quality of her actions, or prevent her from understanding that her actions were both legally and morally wrong,” said Koturbash.

Once out of custody, Leer will be bound by a three-year probation order, terms of which require her to abide by a nightly curfew, abstain from drugs and alcohol, attend counselling as required, and not possess any incendiary devices, such as lighters or fuel.

The judge declined to make a separate $1.1-million restitution order suggested by the Crown to cover the cost of rebuilding the townhouses.

While he expressed a “great deal of sympathy” for the fire victims, some of whom lost pets in the blaze, Koturbash said such an order would represent “a significant barrier to (Leer’s) rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.”

She could, however, be hit with civil lawsuits.