A Victoria man has been sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a violent armed robbery at Paul Mara Jewellers five years ago.
Christopher Standell was also handed a one-year concurrent sentence for helping another man escape after a woman was attacked with a machete in her parents’ home on Esplanade Road in Oak Bay in the early morning of April 25, 2017.
Standell pleaded guilty in January to the July 19, 2017 robbery of the Fort Street jewelery store. The 53-year-old, who has struggled with drug addiction and homelessness most of his life, also pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to breaking-and-entering and robbery in a machete attack.
Crown prosecutor Joel Gold read an agreed statement of facts which revealed that Standell and another man walked into the jewelry store at 4:30 p.m., wearing coveralls, baseball caps, dust masks and sunglasses. Standell pulled a crowbar out of a duffel bag he was carrying. The second man carried a loaded handgun and a piece of wood, which he used to keep the door open for their escape.
One employee ran into the back office when the robbery began. One of the men ran after her but she slammed the door.
Another employee pressed the buzzer alarm on the keys attached to her waist. The robbers told her to give them the keys, but when she did, they didn’t know what to do with them. They handed the keys back to her and told her to open all the jewelry cases.
The woman began to unlock a case on the wall. Standell, who had opened another case, scooped jewelry into the duffel bag. The man with the gun held it to the employee’s head and threatened to kill her if she didn’t open the cases.
“He cocked the gun and it ejected a round onto the ground, which Standell picked up. Standell asked him what he was doing, why he had ‘that’ in the first place and told him to just let her open the case,” Gold said.
Standell was relatively calm but the other man ran around the store, banging on the cases with his gun, shattering a case with wedding bands. At one point, while the man was pointing the gun at the employee, the magazine fell out of it. He then struck her in the face with the gun.
Standell told him to leave her alone and he picked up the magazine as he followed the other man out of the store. The two escaped on a motorcycle which was recovered two days later at a house on Belmont Avenue. Standell’s DNA was found on the rear right hand grip of the motorcycle.
A total of 66 items with a value of $234,000 were stolen. The jewelry was not recovered.
The prosecutor noted that Standell did not plan the robbery, have a firearm or make any threats. “It appears he was trying to modulate the conduct of his co-offender at the time.”
According to the agreed statement of facts, Standell was promised drugs for his role in the robbery but he didn’t receive them. He did have some stolen jewelry in his pants’ pocket which he traded for drugs. Standell believed the other man planned the robbery to pay off drug debts.
Gold also outlined how Standell helped a man involved in a machete attack at an Esplanade Road home earlier that year.
Standell was picked up at 3:30 am. and went along for the ride in a borrowed car to Willows Beach on April 25. The driver parked in the 2000-block of Esplanade Road, told Standell he was going to steal from cars, then left carrying a machete.
Standell stayed at the beach smoking drugs. When the driver returned, he had a purse and a bloody machete with him which he tossed into the trunk. Standell got back in the passenger seat and they drove off.
Standell asked the driver many times what happened. The man would not tell him and angry at his questions, said Gold. The driver didn’t have a phone so Standell let him use his phone to make arrangements to lay low at a house in Esquimalt.
When they arrived, they were told to get the car out of there. Standell made arrangements to return the borrowed car.
Gold explained to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson that the essence of the accessory-after-the fact charge was Standell allowing the other man to use his cellphone and returning the car that had been at the scene of the crime.
Defence lawyer Claire Hatcher said Standell’s issues with addiction and homelessness left him blowing in the wind.
“He found himself associating with people and with activities that have landed him here today,” she said.
There are gaps in his criminal record corresponding to periods of sobriety. He stayed out of trouble from 2009 to 2015 and he has been clean since 2020, said Hatcher. Standell takes responsibility for his actions, said Hatcher, but will pay a hefty price for these offences because his mother is terminally ill and may not survive his prison term.
