A South Okanagan dangerous offender will have to listen to a judge’s sentencing for a second time after an administrative error has led to more court time being used up.
Ronald Arthur Teneycke, who has a long history with the law, appeared via video from the Kent Institution on Wednesday to deal with a charge of failing to comply with a no contact order with Wayne Belleville — the Oliver man he shot while posing as a hitchhiker on Baldy Mountain Service Road during a five-day manhunt for Teneycke in 2015.
READ MORE: Administrative error results in do-over for South Okanagan dangerous offender’s trial
Teneycke entered a guilty plea on Wednesday, admitting to sending Belleville a card and letter (delivered in the mail from the prison) just before Christmas of 2018. While Teneycke also submitted a charter of rights application, he ultimately pleaded guilty to the charge.
READ MORE: South Okanagan man ‘elated’ at criminal’s indefinite sentence
He first appeared before the court on this matter in April and stated he was going to plead guilty but claimed to have no knowledge that he was not to contact Belleville. Because of that, the judge would not accept his plea, asked for the matter to return to court and suggested that Teneycke seek council from a lawyer. On May 22 Teneycke appeared before the court and said he did recall the no-contact order and the Judge Michelle Danyluk read his sentence. However, that wouldn’t be the end to the matter as it was completely struck from the record.
READ MORE: South Okanagan man pleads guilty to shooting
“I was dismissed, sent back to my cell, and then I was called back about 10 or 15 minutes later and the judge had said there was an administrative error and that there was no plea actually entered and they wanted me to enter a plea of guilty. But I was, in fact, sentenced,” said Teneycke, who added by that point he wanted to speak to a lawyer because the whole thing didn’t feel right with him.
This lead to the charge being in front of a judge or judicial case manager four or five more times before Teneycke entered his guilty plea at the courthouse on Wednesday. Crown had been seeking a nine month sentence that would be concurrent with his indefinite sentence which was the result of pleading guilty to charges related to a crime spree where he shot Belleville, robbed a convenience store, went on a lengthy police chase where they fired eight shots at his vehicle and rammed it in an orchard bringing it to a stop.
Teneycke told the judge he will be asking for some leniency because of the “abuse of process.”
The matter will now go before a judicial case manager next week to fix a date for sentencing. Judge Jane Cartwright believed there would need about one hour of court time to deal with the sentencing and to dismiss Teneycke’s charter of rights application, which she admitted to forgetting to dismiss during this court session.
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