Stanley Cup rioter Robert Snelgrove delivered a written apology in B.C. provincial court Monday, but stopped short of reading it aloud or reciting it for reporters outside the courthouse.
The 25-year-old’s lawyer, Chandra Corriveau, said her client has already apologized publicly three times for his crime – namely, stealing $150 in cosmetic products from the Sears department store in downtown Vancouver – and is ready to move on with his life.
“He’s tired of being followed by cameras,” Corriveau said. “I don’t blame him.”
Instead, Corriveau agreed to read Snelgrove’s apology for him Monday morning.
“This was absolutely the worst mistake of my life, and words cannot really express my regret. I was raised in a good family with strong values about responsibly and community, I was not raised to act like a hooligan,” Snelgrove wrote.
“I’m not really sure what made me decide to go from being a shocked bystander to the chaos that night to actually stepping into the Sears store and taking something, but I won’t try to make another excuse for it. It was simply wrong, and I’m sorry.”
The apology was addressed to the citizens of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia.
Judge Gregory Rideout sentenced Snelgrove last week to a five-month conditional sentence, the bulk of which will be served under house arrest at his parents’ home in Coquitlam. Snelgrove will spend the final two months under a strict curfew.
Rideout also ordered the young man to serve 150 hours of community service, though the judge later proposed, unsuccessfully, to reduce that to just 50 hours in order to ease the strain on the province’s overburdened justice system.
Snelgrove is the third person so far sentenced for participating in the Stanley Cup riot. Both others were sentenced to jail time, though one had a prior criminal record and the other was filmed overturning a police car and throwing a barricade into a store window.
A total of 114 accused rioters have been charged with a combined 301 counts, and 23 people have pleaded guilty to the charges against them but are still awaiting sentencing.
The Integrated Riot Investigation Team has recommended a total of 674 charges against 225 riot suspects, but expects that number to climb to about 300 by the time police are through.
