A Chilliwack prolific offender sentenced to six years in prison after being convicted of relatively minor crimes is appealing that conviction.
John Frederick Field’s appeal is scheduled to be heard by the B.C. Court of Appeal on May 31 in Vancouver.
Field was convicted of a failed robbery and a break-and-enter where he got $100, and a sexual assault where he ended up getting kicked in the groin.
In 2020, Crown counsel Henry Waldock asked for a nine-year prison sentence because the 58-year-old had was such a repeat offender having spent 32 of his 40 adult years behind bars.
Waldock told BC Supreme Court Justice Thomas Crabtree that Field was unmanageable in the community.
“How bad is Mr. Field’s criminal record?” Waldock said in Chilliwack BC Supreme Court on May 21, 2020. “He has spent most of his adult life in jail…. Even with remissions, even with bail terms and so on, he spent 32 years in custody. How did that happen? He breaches a lot and he’s been in custody before trial.”
Because of his extensive criminal record and unapologetic behaviour in the community, Waldock asked Justice Crabtree to impose three three-year sentences to run consecutively.
Justice Thomas Crabtree sentenced Field on Aug. 21, 2020 to two years and three months of time served on top of the 825 days he had spent in pre-trial custody.
The sentence seemed long given the circumstances, which involved a series of criminal errors.
In 2018, Field sneaked on to the ground floor balcony of a Chilliwack man’s apartment. The man was home sleeping in a chair by the door, and Field stole his wallet and keys. Field then went down to the parking garage clicking the key fob in an attempt, presumably, to steal the vehicle. But the victim had parked on the street that day so he failed. He got $100 out of the wallet, then he tried to car-jack a woman in the parking garage but failed.
For those two crimes he was convicted of break and enter and attempted robbery.
He then went to a massage parlour, after which he went to find a place to snort crystal meth. He found his way into a commercial building where he confined a woman in her office. He ingested his meth, masturbated in front of the woman and told her to take off her clothes. She told him to get out, he lunged at her touched her chest, and she kicked him in the groin, then in the backside on the way out the door.
For that he was convicted of sexual assault.
Field is specifically appealing the attempted robbery and sexual assault conviction.
READ MORE: Chilliwack prolific offender handed 6 years in prison
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