Break-and-enter artist receives 10-month sentence

Crime hits at the very core of our sense of security, judge says

Spending almost two weeks in isolation at Niagara Detention Centre due to concerns over the coronavirus did not warrant a lower sentence for a man convicted of break and enter, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Forty-three-year-old Shawn Paiva was segregated from other inmates in a “droplet-controlled environment” at the Thorold jail after becoming ill at the end of April.

While a coronavirus test came back negative — and there has been no indication the potentially deadly virus has infiltrated the jail — defence lawyer Jeffrey Root told the judge the COVID-19 crisis should be factored into the sentence and requested a penalty of less than six months.

In Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines Tuesday, Judge Deborah Calderwood agreed the global pandemic is a factor — she described Paiva’s presentence custody “more severe than normal” — but stressed the sentence needs to be proportionate to the crime.

The judge said the sentence must “tell the world” how offensive Paiva’s conduct was on March 3 when he broke into a home in St. Catharines.

“The gravity of the offence of break and enter into a dwelling house is high,” she said. “It amounts to an invasion into the most personal and protected and private space of an individual.

“Of all spaces, people should feel safe in their homes.”

The judge said the crime of break and enter “hits at the very core of our sense of security and safety,” and any sentence must deter like-minded individuals from engaging in similar conduct.

“The idea that intruders may enter a home and rummage through and take our personal effects is more than unsettling or inconvenient or costly.”

Paiva, who has 10 previous convictions for break and enter offences, was sentenced to 10 months in custody, which was reduced to six months based on the time he had spent in pretrial custody.

Court was told he was arrested in March after he kicked in the front door of a home on Albert Street.

He gathered up jewelry and electronic equipment, and helped himself to some food and alcohol.

He was also sentenced on a charge of forcible confinement stemming from an unrelated incident in February at a St. Catharines home.