Stanley Cup rioter convicted at trial should get at least a month in jail: Crown

VANCOUVER – The Crown is recommending the first person to contest charges related to Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riot be sentenced to at least a month in jail.

Spencer Kirkwood was convicted in April of participating in a riot and mischief after a trial in which he claimed to have been too intoxicated to remember smashing a window with a street barricade.

Until his trial, all of the other cases connected to the riot were resolved through guilty pleas.

Crown lawyer Patti Tomasson has told Kirkwood’s sentencing hearing that a sentence of 30 to 45 days, followed by a period of probation, would be appropriate.

She says the riot was one of the most destructive in Canadian history and terrorized residents of Vancouver, and the sentence must reflect that.

Tomasson notes Kirkwood was placed on a bail condition to abstain from alcohol, but he was later caught breaching that condition when he was arrested for drinking and driving.