Repeat offender sentenced to 90 days in jail

Ninety days at the Okanagan Correctional Centre await a Summerland man who was caught by police driving without a licence five times over a nine-month span.

James John Jackson, 35, admitted to the offences under the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act and was sentenced Monday in provincial court in Penticton. He was also hit with a two-year driving prohibition.

The sentence was a joint submission of Crown and defence, and judges may only overrule such deals in extraordinary circumstances.

Court heard Jackson’s first run-in with police was Aug. 22, 2016, and the last was May 6, 2017, both in Summerland.

In between, he was busted twice in Penticton and once in Cranbrook. Each time, he readily admitted to police his licence had been suspended indefinitely in 2014.

Jackson has a lengthy criminal record that includes prior convictions for drugs trafficking, firearms offences, perjury, escape from lawful custody and being unlawfully at large.

That record was described as “quite serious,” by defence counsel, Kathyrn Lundman, who went on to note her client has now “changed his life around” by kicking his addiction to drugs, holding down a full-time job and raising his son.

Lundman said Jackson got behind the wheel because, in Summerland, at least, there is limited public transit available.

“I don’t believe Mr. Jackson was doing this out of disrespect for the police or anything like that,” she added.

Lundman went on to ask that her client be allowed to serve his sentence on weekends, a request to which Judge Greg Koturbash agreed.

“You have a couple charges in your past that go against giving an intermittent sentence,” Koturbash told Jackson, “but I think given the fact that you’ve turned your life around, the best way to protect the public here is to keep you doing what you’re doing as far as work goes and looking after your child.”