Addiction fuels laundry room break-ins

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This article was published 30/05/2023 (1214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He stayed out of trouble with the law for 13 years, but then a meth addiction and a family tragedy sent his life on a path that brought him back to a Brandon courtroom Monday where he was sentenced to 60 days in jail for breaking into coin laundry machines.

Terrance Kimball told his story to Judge Patrick Sullivan, who said he took Kimball’s circumstances into account when he determined his sentence. Kimball also told the court his young granddaughter who lives in B.C. is dying of lung cancer.

“There are personal circumstances in your life and sometime pressures that I don’t want to be insensitive to,” Sullivan said as he delivered the sentence.

Prosecutors and defence were divided on a sentence for Kimball, who pleaded guilty to a charge of break and enter to an apartment building last month. The Crown sought three months, while defence asked the court for a sentence of time served. Kimball has already been in jail for about a month.

Sarah Kok, articling student for the Crown, read the evidence for the charge in court.

Around 10 a.m. on April 19, Brandon police received a report from the manager of an apartment complex on Douglas Street that the laundry machines in the building had been ripped apart. Officers went to the building and viewed the video surveillance.

While there was no video surveillance in the laundry room itself, Kimball was seen on apartment security footage holding a screwdriver in his hand and using it to gain access to the laundry room. Police were able to identify Kimball on the video because they were familiar with him.

Prosecutors noted that at one point in the video, Kimball looks directly at the camera.

“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Kimball is continuously coming back before the court for the exact same kinds of offences here,” Kok said.

Kimball has at least 15 convictions on his criminal record for break and enters, many of which involve coin laundry machines, prosecutors said. On April 13, just a week before his latest offence, he had pleaded guilty to numerous charges, including breaking into a laundromat to obtain coins from the machines. He received a time served sentence of nearly one year.

Defence lawyer Andrew Synyshyn asked for time served, submitting that credit be given to Kimball for his guilty plea and the fact there is no video evidence showing Kimball in the laundry room.

“So unlike a situation where one’s caught red handed, so to speak, there’s very clear video evidence, but ultimately, he’s still giving up the opportunity for trial and having that proven in court.”

Synyshyn said his client has plans to travel to B.C. to visit his granddaughter as soon as he is released and could potentially begin a new life in the province as he has family on the west coast.

When given the opportunity to speak to the court, Kimball said his actions have made him a disappointment to many people, especially his children and family. The 47-year-old said he’s missed important events in his life because of his addiction and criminal involvement. He asked the court for leniency to allow him to go see his granddaughter before she dies.

Sullivan asked what Kimball was doing between 2008 and 2021, noting he had a gap with no offending on his criminal record during that time.

Kimball said he held jobs in Flin Flon and Beaumont for a while, then met a woman in Brandon. He and his wife divorced, and she later died. He began to use drugs with his girlfriend in Brandon. Kimball said he called his brother to take his kids, because he recognized the “addiction life was no good.” He said he was shocked at how using meth for the first time impacted his life.

“It seems to me that you can’t even touch that substance without it ruining your life,” Sullivan said, adding that he has seen the effects of meth in the courtroom on a daily basis.

“I blinked my eye, and I lost time with them, your honour,” Kimball said about his family.

Sullivan said he acknowledged Kimball’s guilty plea as a demonstration of remorse and his admission that drug addiction was fuelling his criminal activities. He encouraged Kimball to seek help for his addiction and warned him of the temptations to fall back into meth once he is released.

Sullivan said the two months in jail that Kimball received was a fair sentence, even without considering the compassionate grounds of Kimball having limited time to see his dying grandchild. Kimball also received one year of probation.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

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