A man with a lengthy criminal history has lost his appeal against convictions linked to a string of crimes in Langley and Maple Ridge in the winter of 2020.
Matthew Sidney Soper attempted to overturn the verdict after he was identified as one of two men in a stolen car, using a stolen debit card, breaking into an occupied Maple Ridge home, and leaving in a stolen pickup truck.
Justice Nitya Iyer wrote the Dec. 16 opinion dismissing Soper’s appeal attempt.
According to Iyer’s ruling, the incident began in Langley in the early morning hours of Nov. 12, 2020, when two men stole a white Honda Civic from a gas station and drove to Maple Ridge.
They used a debit card that belonged to the car’s owner to buy items at a convenience store, then made their way to a home in the 2300 block of 114A Avenue, where they used a garage door opener to get into an occupied home.
The owner was asleep inside as the two men entered and took a Samsung tablet and the keys for the owner’s truck. One of the men drove off in the truck, the other in the Honda.
The other suspect in the case, Anthony Kalt, pleaded guilty.
Soper went to trial, arguing that it couldn’t be proved he knew the Honda and debit card were stolen, and that he might not have been the second man in the car during the break in.
There were multiple surveillance videos and still images collected of the suspects during the course of the night, and RCMP officers identified Soper fairly quickly after the incident.
A Surrey RCMP officer, Cpl. Barros, saw circulating images of the suspects and identified Soper, saying he had surveilled him multiple times between 2012 and 2020 during auto crime investigations, and had once arrested Soper and had him in the back of Barros’s cruiser for 20 minutes.
“During that time, Mr. Soper threatened Cpl. Barros and wanted to beat him up,” Iyer wrote.
In his appeal, Soper’s lawyer argued that the original trial judge had made errors about the travel time between the convenience store and the burgled home, and in assuming that Soper was the same person who was with Kalt during the burglary and truck theft. The appeal argued that there were significant differences on video between the passengers in earlier and later videos.
Iyer and her fellow judges dismissed this argument.
She noted that the judge may have made a minor error about travel time, but it was not significant.
“She [the trial judge] found it unlikely – not impossible – that Mr. Kalt could have found another male passenger of similar height, clothing, and footwear over that period of time during the early morning hours when most people are sleeping,” Iyer wrote.
Soper is currently awaiting trial on 62 charges laid in 2024, for incidents taking place in Delta, Surrey, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Vancouver, and Abbotsford.
Those charges include multiple counts of car theft, possession of stolen property, fraud, and breach of probation and release conditions.
He is currently in custody.