Sarnia judge gives break-in lookout conditional discharge

A Sarnia judge was mulling whether to hand Kevin Churchill a suspended sentence or a conditional discharge for his role in an overnight break-in and theft in Corunna.

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The suspended sentence assistant Crown attorney Sarah Carmody wanted to have entailed a criminal conviction, while the discharge sought by Churchill’s lawyer, Nick Cake, would keep his criminal record clean.

Justice Mark Poland sided with Cake and went with the discharge, but made it conditional on Churchill, 44, earning it by completing 80 hours of community service over the next 10 months.

“You’ll get a chance to pay the public back for your misdeeds,” the judge told Churchill.

Churchill, of Sarnia, and Cole Dew, 27, of Forest, both faced 13 charges following a late-night break-in on Queen Street in Corunna on Feb. 2, 2023, Lambton OPP said at the time. Churchill recently pleaded guilty only to one count of breaking and entering with intent.

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If he follows the conditions of his one-year probation order, he’ll have no criminal record. The rest of the charges against him were dropped.

Dew was giving Churchill a ride to a friend’s house in his red pickup that Thursday night when they took a detour to a new residential development on Queen Street, court heard.

Police were sent there soon after as an alarm company reported a potential burglary and a man dressed in black with a flashlight.

Officers saw the pickup leave the area and followed it to nearby Blackthorn Crescent, where they found two men in the cab wearing dark clothes and bandanas, and miscellaneous tools in the truck bed.

Tools were missing from a new home on Queen Street and several other houses’ doors had been kicked in and damaged.

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“Kevin Churchill was a party to the offense and did not enter 435 Queen St. or any of the other residences noted by police,” Carmody clarified.

Cake added his client was essentially being a lookout for Dew and was aiding or abetting him while he did the breaking and entering.

Dew recently completed a six-month jail sentence for the series of break-ins along with a dangerous motorcycle chase through Sarnia.

Cake said his client got a ride with the wrong person that night and tried to help him after the destination changed instead of walking away. But it was a blip and a one-off, he added.

“This was an evening of bad judgment that caused a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety,” Cake said. “He just wants to move forward.”

It wasn’t a one-off, Carmody countered, noting Dew entered several homes while Churchill kept watch.

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“(Churchill) could easily have decided to walk away,” she said. “He stayed.”

She also argued the conditional discharge Cake asked for was contrary to the public interest.

“This costs people a lot of money. Tools aren’t cheap,” she said, noting Churchill works in a similar field.

“The Crown’s point is well made, in my view,” Poland said. “Mr. Churchill – of anyone, frankly – would be very familiar with exactly how disruptive it might be to lose one’s tools and to have one’s worksite disrupted.”

But the judge gave him the chance to make up for it by including community service in his probation order.

“That’s where the rubber hits the road for you, sir,” Poland said.

Churchill, who declined a chance to address the court, also has a 10 pm to 6 am curfew and can’t contact Dew or anyone with a criminal record for the next year.

Dew still faces several other sets of outstanding charges, including some related to a series of high-valued thefts in Bright’s Grove allegedly involving a stolen pickup.

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