A 66-year-old man who walked into a local business with a loaded rifle and shot a hole in the wall was sentenced Tuesday to time served and 18 months probation.
Robert Thomas Taylor had been in custody since his arrest, a total of 232 days.
During a hearing Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court, Taylor pleaded guilty to careless use of a firearm, possessing a firearm without a licence and unsafe storage of a firearm.
Two more serious charges - using a firearm in a robbery and intentionally discharging a firearm while reckless - were stayed. Those counts carry minimum terms of four and five years in prison, respectively.
The incident occurred April 12 at a 100-block Kingston Avenue antiques store. Taylor then took off in his pickup truck without taking anything of value and police later tracked him down to a home on East Perry Road where they found a gun lying in the vehicle and several more in the home.
During the hearing Tuesday, the court heard Taylor had run into a financial bind. Suffering from degenerative arthritis, Taylor had been relying on disability benefits from the provincial government but when he turned 65, those benefits were stopped. Moreover, the federal government refused him Canada Pension Plan entitlements because he had not filed income tax returns for several years.
By then, Taylor had been reduced to living in an outbuilding and committed the act out of desperation, the court was told.
Among the conditions of his probation, Taylor was ordered to take all the steps necessary to qualify for CPP. He was also issued a lifetime firearms prohibition.
