Man steals bike to make probation meeting
By Tony Blais, QMI Agency
EDMONTON – An Edmonton man admitted Thursday he was late for an appointment with a probation officer, so he stole a bicycle and rode it to the meeting at the west-end police station.
Since one of the conditions of Michael Letendre's probation was that he was to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, that was probably not a good idea.
Needless to say, the 19-year-old was arrested and charged with theft.
"It's more a crime of stupidity than anything," said defence lawyer Nicole Sissons, telling court her client rode the stolen bike to the police station as he didn't want to miss the appointment because his probation officer had threatened to jail him for breaching his probation.
"It defies logic," she said. "There is no excuse for it."
Several people in the gallery laughed when the facts were read out, and even the judge had a chuckle.
"You know, if you could incorporate these stories into a novel, it would read so badly," said Judge Darlene Wong.
Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you're going to make showing up for his probation officer this guy's number one priority I think its only right that you cut him some slack on how he gets there. He's poor so he probably doesn't have access to a car or money for a cab. What's he supposed to do, walk? Then he's flirting with the clock. I say we stop giving criminals problems and start giving them solutions. I say the people of Canada spread some of that good nature and buy this dude his own bike.
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