A 56-year-old Prince George man was sentenced Thursday to two years less a day of house arrest for storing a trove of illegal firearms on behalf of an alleged criminal.
The outcome for Leslie Craig Smith stems from a December 2013 seizure that included an SKS semiautomatic rifle, a sawed off and therefore prohibited .22 caliber rifle, a pistol grip shotgun and a .308 rifle, later determined to have been stolen from a home in McBride.
What police described as a "large amount" of ammunition was also taken from his 1800-block Ninth Avenue home.
Visibly frail and severely stooped over with sclerosis of the spine, Smith also suffers from a degenerative disc in his back and sleeps in a chair. He had developed a dependency on opioids to deal with his pain. That, in turn, led to an addiction to heroin which, the court was told, allowed criminals to "get their claws into him."
Following his arrest, Smith told RCMP he agreed to store the weapons and refrained from reporting the trouble to police out of concern for the possible repercussions not only for him but also for his adult children.
A court-ordered publication ban shields the identity of the person Smith was storing the guns for.
Crown prosecution had been seeking 30 to 40 months in jail, arguing time behind bars was needed in the name of denunciating the act and deterring others from committing the same crime.
But provincial court judge Dan Weatherly agreed with defence counsel's position that a conditional sentence order was more appropriate. Calling Smith's motivation an "excuse but not a defence," Weatherly said Smith is "clearly a vulnerable member of society."
Conditions of the order include a curfew and allowing RCMP to enter his home without a warrant to search for weapons, which should deter others from forcing Smith to commit the same act in the future.
"He's going to be what's called a very, very hot item as far as anyone hanging around with him," defence counsel Brian Gilson said.
Weatherly urged Smith to turn to saboxone or methadone to deal with his addiction. Using heroin would violate the conditions of his sentence and land him in custody, Weatherly reminded him.
Given a chance to speak prior to sentencing, Smith said he stored the guns out of fear. "I had been the recipient of violence in the past and I didn't want it to happen again," he told the court.
Smith, who had faced 25 charges, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a prohibited firearm. Sentencing was delayed while counsel waited for superior court rulings that eventually struck down the three-year mandatory minimum for the offence.
