Bank robber gets two years in prison

A man who committed seven bank robberies in the span of three weeks in Vancouver and Burnaby has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Eranga De Silva, who was 24 at the time of the robberies in January and February 2016, typically handed the bank teller a note that said he had a gun. In one case the note said he also had a grenade.

He never showed a weapon of any kind and when he was apprehended in a taxi soon after the last robbery, he was unarmed.

Most of the notes demanded a specified amount of money, ranging from $1,200 to $3,000. The seven tellers in the robberies all gave him smaller amounts than he demanded. He made off with a total of $2,360. Only one bank teller provided information about the impact of the crime on his life, saying he had suffered no long-lasting effects.

In January, after B.C. Supreme Court Justice George Macintosh rejected De Silva’s argument that his rights were violated after he was bitten by a police dog during his arrest, the accused raised no further defence and was convicted of the offences.

In imposing sentence on De Silva, the judge noted that in a sentencing hearing the facts underlying the particular offence must be closely examined and noted that De Silva’s crimes were not on a par with offenders who brandish weapons during bank robberies and demand people to get down on the floor.

De Silva and his family fled Sri Lanka in 1997 when that country was in turmoil and came to Canada, with the accused becoming a Canadian citizen in 2013.

During his teens he fell into drug use and associated with people in the drug trade.

In his late teens and early 20s he became drug dependent.

The judge also noted that De Silva had strong support from his family and glowing reports from an employer after his release on bail.

The judge said he agreed with the defence submission that a two-year sentence followed by three years’ probation was appropriate in all of the circumstances.

The Crown had called for a fiveyear jail term.