Conditional sentence for storing guns

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2022 (1439 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man who pleaded guilty to storing two guns for another person was sentenced to a six-month conditional sentence order Thursday morning.

Clay Kirby, 43, pleaded guilty in Brandon provincial court to possession of a prohibited device and improperly storing firearms in the April 20, 2021 incident. The charges stem from Project Debris, a months-long investigation into drug trafficking by the RCMP, Brandon Police Service and the Rivers Police Service.

Project Debris started in October 2020 when the RCMP organized crime unit started investigating a drug trafficking network in Brandon, including meth, fentanyl and cocaine, federal Crown attorney Jean-Pierre Deniset told the court. He added the operation had ties to British Columbia.

Police began monitoring the communications of one of the accused in February 2021, Deniset said. They identified a member of the scheme who allegedly had his own network of associates.

Kirby was identified as part of the network, Deniset said, and was allowing guns to be stashed at his residence.

On April 20, police executed seven search warrants as part of Project Debris, including at Kirby’s house, the Crown said. While searching the residence, police found 12 guns stored in a locked gun cabinet, along with two more in a cardboard box.

The upstairs guns belonged to Kirby and were stored legally and properly, but the ones in the box were being stored for a co-accused, Deniset said.

There were “numerous” shotgun shells and ammunition in different places in the house, including in cushions, bedroom drawers and in the kitchen, according to the Crown.

Police found six gun magazines, five of which were modified to make them high-capacity, Deniset said. The guns stored for the co-accused were a shotgun and rifle, along with shotgun shells and loaded magazines.

“It appears maybe he was a little bit willfully blind … certainly a very dangerous situation where he was allowing these kinds of items to be stored inside his residence,” Deniset said.

Deniset recommended a six-month conditional sentence order and for the court to seize all of Kirby’s guns, including the ones he owned legally. He argued Kirby shouldn’t be allowed to have them based on the charges he was sentenced for.

Defence lawyer Myles Davis said Kirby has led a productive life. He noted he had a valid possession and acquisition licence and otherwise stored his guns properly.

He knew the co-accused who asked him to store the guns for approximately a decade and saw him like a younger brother. He ultimately agreed to store the guns in his basement when asked.

“Looking back, Mr. Kirby regrets this decision,” Davis said, adding he knows he shouldn’t have agreed to store them.

Davis jointly recommended the conditional sentence order with the Crown.

Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said the incident is serious, but Kirby was more removed from the allegations of Project Debris than his co-accused.

She sentenced him to a six-month conditional sentence order and ordered him to forfeit all of his firearms. She also banned him from owning firearms for five years.

“Possession of firearms is not a right in this country, it’s a privilege, and it comes with a great deal of responsibility and the accused failed with respect to the responsibility,” she said of the charges.

The charges for Kirby’s co-accused in Project Debris are still before the court and are scheduled to appear in court in mid-March.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_