A McCreary man has been sentenced to two years less a day in jail for a crime that gives new meaning to “drive-thru ATM.”
Colin Cripps, 29, pleaded guilty to break, enter and theft after he and another man drove a stolen truck through the front of a Brandon convenience store and sped away with its bank machine.
“The sentence imposed by this court needs to send the message that brazen acts of criminal violence against business owners will not be tolerated,” provincial court Judge Geoff Bayly wrote in a decision released earlier this week.
“The community, law abiding or criminally oriented, also need to understand that when a crime is committed that involves deliberate and unnecessary property damage and where public safety is compromised, punishment will be severe,” said Bayly, who sentenced Cripps to an additional 12 months supervised probation.
Cripps and co-accused Sean Monchain stole a truck that they used “like a battering ram” to crash through the wall of the Little Chief convenience store at about 4 a.m., June 6, 2022, Bayly wrote in his decision. The men used chains to rip the bank machine from its position and loaded it into the truck.
Police, alerted to the break-in, arrived just as Cripps and Monchain were driving away. A short chase ended with the truck landing in a ditch five kilometres south of the city. Cripps was arrested climbing out of a truck window, while Monchain, the driver, ran away and was not immediately arrested.
The break-in caused more than $100,000 damage to the convenience store, which remained closed as repairs were completed.
“While the small business was insured, the owners no doubt suffered both financially and emotionally from the lengthy closure,” Bayly said.
Cripps has a lengthy criminal record, including multiple convictions for robbery, and has spent eight of the last 10 years in custody. While on bail for the Brandon crime, he was sentenced in Saskatchewan to one year in jail for a commercial break-and-enter in that province.
According to a pre-sentence report prepared for court, Cripps had an upbringing marked by neglect and instability and, at the time of his arrest, was in the grip of a longtime methamphetamine addiction.
Bayly said a three-year prison sentence would have otherwise been appropriate but for Cripps’s history of addiction and recent counselling efforts while on bail.
“I am convinced that the offender was raised in an environment that caused him trauma and that the seed of childhood trauma often leads to addiction later in life,” Bayly said. “Any sentence imposed must reflect these factors because they are out of his control, and he has taken meaningful steps to address them.”
Monchain pleaded guilty to break, enter and theft last fall and was sentenced to 14 months in jail.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.