A Prince George woman was sentenced Friday to a further two years and two months in jail for her role in the shooting of a Mackenzie men and torching a stolen pickup truck.
In sentencing Meranda Leigh Dingwall, 25, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Patrice Abrioux rejected an attempt to convince him the mandatory minimum for the most serious of the offences for which she was convicted amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Dingwall was sentenced to five years for two counts of discharging a firearm with intent to wound or disfigure - the minimum that can be issued for the counts - and received credit of 1,050 days for time served prior to sentencing, leaving 775 days to go.
Her lawyer, Brian Gilson, had argued for 18 months to two years and asked Abrioux to take into account her lack of a criminal record, her youth and her aboriginal background.
He was also asked Abrioux to take into account the possibility Dingwall simply did not know that when she traveled with co-accused Kelly Michael Richet, 32, and Christopher Ryan Russell, 31, to the community of 3,500 people north of Prince George, it was to carry out a drive-by shooting.
It was suggested Dingwall was not actually at the scene of the shooting but had been left behind with another vehicle at a nearby logging road and was not told what happened. But, in part, Abrioux found the scenario did not justify a sentence "so low as to render the five-year mandatory minimum grossly disproportionate, particularly in light of the seriousness of the offence."
Following a nine day trial, Abrioux had found each of the three guilty of 11 counts related to the July 7, 2016 early-morning incident in which two men were shot at with one suffering a wound to his calf.
According to witness testimony, a white pickup truck pulled up in front of a 200-block Crysdale Drive home and two passengers got out. One walked around the back of the truck and up to the curb, then raised a handgun and fired two to four shots at three people standing on the front lawn. All three ran towards the house but one collapsed while the shooter jumped into the pickup's back and the other got into the cab and the truck sped off.
Images from the video surveillance camera of a restaurant looking over Mackenzie Boulevard showed a pickup truck of the same the description heading north shortly before 4 a.m. and then a few moments later heading south, this time with something large in the box, possibly a person.
About 20 minutes later, a truck later determined to have been stolen from a Prince George home the day before was found alight on a logging road a short distance off Highway 39 about 20 kilometres south of the town.
Just prior to coming across the truck, a witness also saw a large SUV heading south on Highway 39. An RCMP officer who had been called out from Prince George in answer to the call saw a vehicle matching the description at a gas station in Bear Lake. As it turned out, Dingwall was driving the SUV and Richet and Russell were with her.
RCMP also found a pass for handicapped parking from the stolen truck in her vehicle. And at the site where the truck was found on fire, glass from a broken light matching that from Dingwall's vehicle was found.
With the help of a tracking dog, a .45 calibre semiautomatic handgun was found in the bush about 100 metres away from the burn site.
Cartridges from the firearm were found at the scene of the shooting. Because they were wearing baggy clothing, hoodies and covers over their faces, the witness was unable to provide accurate descriptions of the shooter and the accomplice.
Abrioux also had problems with the way gun smoke residue found on the three was collected - he had concerns their hands may have been contaminated during the arrest. But he also noted the three all lived in Prince George and found that on the totality of the evidence, the three had at least aided and abetted in the shooting even if possibly none had pulled the trigger and found them guilty of the counts.
Abrioux said there was a chance others may have been involved but did not speculate on the motivation for the incident.
Richet and Russell will be sentenced at a later date.
