Penticton man gets 3 years in jail for sawed-off shotgun in vehicle

A man has been handed a three-year sentence for possession of a prohibited sawed-off shotgun, but will skip time in a federal prison with a year and a day credit for time served.

James Russell Fraser was sentenced in total to two years less a day, the maximum sentence for provincial jails, for a June 21, 2017 incident in Penticton. At the time, Fraser had been pulled over on Main Street after an RCMP officer noted the licence plate did not match his truck.

At first, Fraser had been co-operative with police, telling the officer his car was not stolen but uninsured. As he was being arrested, he told the officer that there was a shotgun in the vehicle, and broke free from the officer, jumping over a fence into an alleyway.

Another officer pursued Fraser on foot while the original officer remained at the vehicle. He was ultimately arrested on Government Street, and when he was booked into RCMP cells a vial of a substance and a live 9-mm round were found on him.

Upon searching the truck, a sawed-off shotgun loaded with a single 12-gauge shell wrapped with electrical tape was found in a black bag on the front seat. A cell phone also found on the seat, searched by police, was found to have photos of Fraser posing with the shotgun, including one dated the day of the arrest.

Crown lawyer Kurt Froelich noted that the firearm was considered a prohibited weapon because the barrel length was less than 660 millimetres. He added that the firearm is considered an aggravating factor by courts.

“This is a type of firearm which the courts have routinely recognized as having a primary purpose of killing or injuring human beings,” Froelich said. “In other words there are very few other purposes for which this type of firearm is possessed.”

As well, Fraser has 32 prior convictions, including one firearms conviction in 2007 that resulted in a lifetime firearms prohibition and four convictions each for robbery and assault.

Fraser was initially booked for two trials in B.C. provincial and superior courts for the incident — one for a total of eight firearms, driving and controlled substance charges and another with three firearms charges — but ultimately entered a guilty plea to one count on each of the trial matters.

Defence counsel Ben Lynskey told the court he had intended to enter a guilty plea earlier, but was building up time in pre-sentence custody to earn a provincial jail sentence.

Lynskey noted that Fraser, a tradesperson who works on pipelines, has struggled with addictions that started off with a prescription. He had been on a methadone program, but was mandated to discontinue the program to get into treatment.

After getting off methadone, Lynskey said Fraser fell back into addiction issues, and at the time of his arrest had been using methamphetamine and crack cocaine and had been suffering from paranoia at the time.

Fraser is now back on methadone, Lynskey said. He also stressed that Fraser telling police about the firearm was a mitigating factor, in sentencing, as it avoided any type of escalation should police come across the shotgun by accident.

Judge Cathie Heinrichs agreed with a joint submission from Crown and defence for a three-year sentence, reduced to two years less a day with credit for time served.