A 23-year-old Mississauga woman will spend the next two years and four months behind bars for her role in the 2022 robbery of a Freedom Mobile store in Cambridge.
Justice Michael Valente delivered the sentence Oct. 31, after the woman was convicted of robbery, but acquitted on charges of committing robbery while using an imitation firearm and occupying a motor vehicle in which she knew there was a firearm.
Defence counsel argued for a 12-month conditional sentence, including four months under house arrest, four months of imposed curfew and four months with conditions, citing case law for similar robberies, some more violent, in which criminals where given more lenient sentences.
Valente, however, said he didn't believe the woman's claim she knew nothing of the planned robbery until it happened.
That was on Feb. 24, 2022, when three men entered the store on Elgin Street, stole a number of cell phones, threatened violence against a store clerk and fled in a stolen Honda Civic.
The accused and her ex were waiting in an Acura SUV parked in a nearby residential area, according to an agreed statement of facts.
The three robbers pulled up in the Honda, entered the Acura and she drove them back to Mississauga without questioning what was going on.
Police surrounded her vehicle and recovered the cell phones after she dropped the three men off at a Mississauga condominium complex.
The offender portrayed herself as naïve and unsophisticated, but she is neither, the judge wrote.
Valente said there were "many moving parts" to the planned robbery, including evidence that the robbers initially intended to target the Scotiabank branch at 544 Hespeler Road. They entered the bank masked but reconsidered and chose instead to rob the cell phone store.
"To my mind, it would have been virtually impossible for [the ex boyfriend] to coordinate the execution of the robbery from the passenger seat of the Acura without [the accused's] knowledge of what was happening at all material times," Valente wrote. "A carefully planned robbery, like this one, is reliant on a getaway driver with knowledge of the plan from start to finish and any variations along the way."
The offender has no prior convictions, has extensive family and community support, has since taken courses to become a social worker and has expressed remorse for her actions.
The judge, however, said he had to consider the importance of the principles of deterrence and denunciation when sentencing for robbery.
"After having considered all the relevant factors and circumstances of this case, I have concluded that considerations of denunciation and deterrence must predominate and impose a sentence of 2 years and 8 months incarceration."
The accused was given credit for time served, having spent nine days in prison following her arrest and 970 days under strict bail conditions.
