No jail for robber who terrorized family
Stating that prison is too dangerous a place for the offender, a Windsor judge on Thursday handed a conditional sentence to a local man convicted of invading a home with another man before the armed and masked pair terrorized and robbed a South Windsor family.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Carey agreed with the assessment of a psychology expert presented by the defence who testified that putting Dalton Gilmore behind bars “could be life-threatening.” The judge said Gilmore, 26, did not present a continued threat to the community and handed him a two-year conditional sentence to be served at home.
The prosecution, citing the aggravating factors surrounding the crime and the trauma still felt by the victims more than three years after the offence, had argued for a prison term of four and a half years.
Sporting balaclavas and armed with imitation firearms that the victims were convinced were real, Gilmore and Demetrius Porter stormed into a home on Morand Street on the night of March 19, 2018.
The four occupants were held at gunpoint in a bedroom by one of the robbers, who demanded drugs and money, while the other searched the home.
Eyewitnesses spotted the two masked men exiting the home and entering a vehicle.
Police tracked the vehicle, registered to Gilmore's mother, and the men to the mother's home, where the robbers surrendered and the stolen goods were recovered.
Porter, with a lengthy criminal record, was sentenced in 2019 to five years in prison after pleading guilty. Gilmore, who had no prior record, also pleaded guilty in 2019, but the pandemic and mental-health assessments sought by the defence caused adjournments and a two-year delay in concluding the court case.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Court of Appeal's Sharma decision a year ago struck down Criminal Code provisions that would have made a lengthy prison sentence mandatory for such home-invasion crimes.
The psychologist's report described Gilmore as suffering from “precarious mental health,” including depression, psychosis, anxiety, paranoia and post-traumatic stress disorder. The court heard Gilmore was a former talented athlete and football player with a history of concussions that might explain his behaviour and mental-health challenges, including suicide attempts by hanging and pills.
Carey described Porter, who was 30 at the time of his arrest, as a “hardened” repeat offender and the “prime actor” in the 2018 home invasion, with Gilmore being someone “easily influenced by people around him,” another reason cited for not imposing a prison sentence. “A criminal record will forever be a stain on his reputation and character,” the judge said.
A pre-sentence report described Gilmore as “truly remorseful” and determined to continue treatment and counselling.
A different judge at Porter's 2019 sentencing described the pair's home invasion as “very, very serious … clearly intolerable” and that the victims “experienced both trauma and terror.” Victim-impact statements described the “horrible feeling to never feel safe” again in their own home, and the prosecutor said it remained “unclear whether they will ever recover from this.”
Asked to comment after Thursday's decision, assistant Crown attorney Bryan Pillon wouldn't say whether the prosecution would consider an appeal. “On this specific case, the Crown has no comment,” he said in an email.
Gilmore's lawyer Neil Rooke said the judge had to consider “an extremely unusual set of mental-health issues, including the very high risk of self-harm if he were incarcerated.”
Rooke said a sentence served at home with strict conditions over the next two years is in the community's best interest. “Sending Mr. Gilmore to jail would result in him being more likely to reoffend upon release.”
The judge ordered Gilmore to attend counselling and follow the guidance of his probation officer and community supervisor, including when and how he might be permitted to leave his home, for example, to attend work.