Manitoba’s top court cuts sentence for prolific shoplifter despite judge’s warning

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This article was published 15/01/2025 (283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s highest court has reduced the prison time given to a prolific shoplifter, despite a judge’s insistence a lesser sentence would diminish public faith in the justice system.

Katheryn Laurel Audy, 35, was sentenced to three years and seven months in custody in 2023, after she pleaded guilty to a string of retail thefts and a robbery in Swan River. The Court of Appeals overruled that decision last month, cutting her prison time by one year.

The successful appeal heightens the frustration of people living in the rural community, who feel there is little recourse against repeat offenders “destroying” their homes and businesses, said Municipality of Swan Valley West Reeve Bill Gade.

“We have to see people actually pay for their crimes. Our hope is, when someone is incarcerated, they get some help along with that,” Gade said, noting Audy is one of roughly two dozen prolific criminals in the community.

“I’m not sure we’ve ever helped her.”

According to court records, Audy was addicted to methamphetamine in February 2023, when she repeatedly punched a 29-year-old grocery manager in the face and then “ran out of the store, laughing hysterically” with stolen goods.

The victim, who had returned to work from maternity leave just two days before, suffered minor injuries in the attack, records show.

In May of that year, Judge Geoffrey Bayly ruled the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation woman should serve three years in prison for the robbery charge. He noted she had “an astounding” criminal record that included convictions for 22 thefts and three assaults over roughly four years.

In a rare move, Bayly twice denied joint recommendations from Audy’s defence counsel Aaron Beddome and Crown attorney Janice Barclay. The pair initially suggested Audy should serve four months for the robbery and later returned with a nine-month sentencing proposal after Bayly disagreed.

In Canada, it is uncommon for a judge to rule against joint recommendations in criminal cases, unless the sentence is considered unreasonable, contrary to public interest or damaging to the justice system.

“(The recommended sentence) is so low that members of the Swan River community would feel abandoned if I were to impose it,” Bayly said at the time. “It would bring the administration of justice into disrepute in the eyes of any reasonably informed person.”

Bayly said anything less than a three-year sentence would not be enough to deter Audy from reoffending and would send the wrong message to a community that has been “absolutely rocked by the epidemic of drugs.”

Beddome moved to withdraw Audy’s guilty plea after the judge outlined the sentence, but Bayly denied that request.

The Court of Appeal found that, while Bayly did not err in his assessment of public interest, the robbery sentence was unfit because no weapon was used, the victim suffered only minor injuries and Audy pleaded guilty.

“In our view, while denunciation and deterrence are the primary sentencing objectives in the circumstances, the three-year robbery sentence was disproportionate,” the Court of Appeal said.

During the appeal review, the Crown acknowledged the three-year sentence was high, given the facts of the offense.

The court noted Audy has significant Gladue factors, which were also outlined in a pre-sentencing report.

Court heard Audy has two children and a Grade 10 education. She doesn’t know her father and was exposed to violence, drugs and alcohol at a young age through her mother. She was raised mostly by her grandmother as a result.

Audy said she gets an adrenaline rush from shoplifting, and described stealing from stores as “her job” to “help other people” and to support her addictions, the appeal decision said.

The pre-sentencing report assessed Audy as a high risk to reoffend and found “she is not personally invested in her rehabilitation,” Bayly said.

At the time of the 2023 robbery, she was under a probation order prohibiting her from entering the store and had been involved in at least four other thefts in over a month, court heard.

Data from Statistics Canada show Swan River’s crime severity index (which measures changes in the level of severity of crime from year to year) has spiked since 2018.

In 2023, the index was rated at 556 — more than three times higher than Manitoba overall at 145.

“We were happy to see that the judge took it seriously for once,” Gade said of Bayly’s original sentence.

“I think that it was a complete waste of time and resources to have the appeal. We should have put that time and resources into fixing her drug problem.”

Gade, who owns multiple businesses in Swan River and is president of the local Chamber of Commerce, said property crime, theft and addictions are killing the community.

He has repeatedly appealed to justice officials and the provincial government for support, he said.

“To think of recommending a sentence that doesn’t even see as much incarceration as (a victim) takes to recover from an incident, that would trouble anybody,” Gade said.

“We have struggled at length with Crown attorneys who don’t take the problem seriously here … At the very least, we can’t just say, ‘Well, you’re high on drugs, so it’s OK to attack someone in a retail store.’ We have to have punishments for that.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca