A prolific criminal who pleaded guilty to an attempted robbery in Surrey has dodged a dangerous offender designation that would have carried indeterminate incarceration but instead was found to be a long-term offender warranting a determinate prison sentence followed by long-term supervision.
Justice Barbara Norell presided over the case of Christopher David Prokopchuk in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.
“I appreciate that it will be difficult and it will be a challenge for you, but I know you want to get better, to be able to have support from your family, to get out of this cycle of prison, and to be able to live a productive life,” she told Prokopchuk. “You are intelligent and you know what you have to do. You can still turn your life around if you actively participate in your treatment and programming. You have been given the opportunity. It is up to you. I hope you take it. I really hope you succeed, sir, and I wish you the best of luck.
“I sentence you to five-and-a-half years in custody, or 2,008 days, less pre-sentence credit of one-to-one of 1,265 days. The sentence imposed is 743 days in custody, being two years and 13 days.”
Norell noted the “general” range for robbery sentencing is two to nine years. The Crown argued for four to seven years while the defence counsel argued for four to six.
Prokopchuk was charged with committing a robbery on Sept. 11, 2021, in Surrey but pleaded guilty to the lesser included offence of attempted robbery.
The Crown sought to have him declared a dangerous offender with indeterminate incarceration but in the alternative, applied to have Prokopchuk declared a long-term offender with a determinate sentence that would result in three more years in prison after accounting for time served in pre-sentence custody, as well as a 10‑year supervision order.
The Crown submitted, however, that if Prokopchuk is given a determinate sentence with a specific release date “he is manifestly unlikely to pursue the treatment path that needs to occur to bring his risk to the public down to an acceptable level,” the judge noted.
Prokopchuk initially refused to be interviewed by a forensic psychiatrist, who nevertheless tendered an opinion based on his criminal record. Prokopchuk was subsequently interviewed twice.
Norell noted in her reasons for sentence that the “primary purpose of the dangerous offender regime is the protection of society” and is aimed at a “very small group of offenders whose personal characteristics and particular circumstances militate strenuously in favour of preventive incarceration.”
These, she explained, are “highly dangerous criminals posing threats to the physical and mental well‑being of their victims” and who are “not inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint so that future violent acts can quite confidently be expected of that person.”
Norell noted Prokopchuk has an “extensive criminal history, starting as a youth and continuing to the present. His youth criminal history starts in 1996 at age 16 when he was sentenced to 18 months probation and community service for five convictions for break, enter, and theft from homes.”
While on probation, he was sentenced to three months open custody for convictions of possession of stolen property under $5,000 (a vehicle), and dangerous driving. “He received a further 10-day sentence for being unlawfully at large. He was next sentenced to eight months open custody for five counts of break and enter and possession of property obtained by crime.”
His adult criminal record began in 1998 with a 60-day jail sentence for break, enter, and theft. “Three months later, he was sentenced to six months in custody for break, enter, and theft and two counts of failure to comply with a recognizance. He subsequently escaped from custody by walking away and was sentenced to a further three months in custody,” the judge noted. The following year, Prokopchuk was sentenced to 30 months in jail for 11 break-ins through doors or windows that were pried open when nobody was home.
He was released on parole from Matsqui prison in June 1999 but violated his terms and was unlawfully at large for five weeks until being apprehended in October 1999. The following April, he was sentenced to four additional years in custody for 12 break, enter, and theft charges, one break and enter with intent charge, and being unlawfully at large.
In September 2000, Prokopchuk was sentenced to 21 days for assaulting two sheriffs and in June 2002 was transferred to Kent maximum-security prison after assaulting a disabled inmate.
His statutory release on Sept. 25, 2003 landed him in Dunsmuir House but that same dayvtested positive for cocaine and morphine and also tested positive for cocaine on Oct. 6, 2023, and failed to return for curfew. “Mr. Prokopchuk had been referred for psychological counselling but had refused. He was arrested four days later after committing a robbery,” the judge noted in her reasons.
In November 2003, Prokopchuk was sentenced to 18 more months in Kent for the bank robbery, and was in April 2004 moved to an alternate housing unit for inmates “unable to integrate into other populations for a variety of reasons.
By the end of January 2006, he was released to Victoria’s Manchester House on statutory release but that was temporarily suspended within three months for failing to provide urine samples and “unwillingness to meet substance use and counselling requirements.” On Oct. 30, 2007, Prokopchuk was sentenced to five years in prison for 11 counts of residential break, enter, and theft, one count of break and enter with intent, and one count of mischief.
On Sept. 9, 2011, Prokopchuk was arrested in Squamish for three robberies and was sent to Mission where he refused to integrate and was placed in segregation then transferred to Kent on Sept. 16, 2011, where he was again placed in segregation. In May 2012 Prokopchuk was sentenced to four years for the three robberies, six months for being unlawfully at large, one year consecutive for use of an imitation firearm, and one day for possession of a controlled substance.
On Oct. 15, 2018 he committed an attempted robbery, and then a week later a robbery and was sentenced to four years in prison for the attempted robbery and robbery, minus credit for time served, and four months for being unlawfully at large.
On Sept. 11, 2021, Prokopchuk tried to rob a credit union, demanding $20,000 and claiming he had a gun. A teller hiding in a closet called 911 and police arrested Prokopchuk at gunpoint. He was brought to Surrey Pretrial, returned to Kent and eventually transferred to Edmonton Institution and then Stony Mountain.
Norell found the Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that “without treatment, programming and supervision there is a high likelihood that Mr. Prokopchuk will, while unsupervised in the community, attempt robbery or commit a robbery of a business or bank, and do it in the same manner as in the past.
“There is a high likelihood he will approach a person at a till or wicket and indicate that this is a robbery, that he has a weapon although he will not have one, and demand money. However, in all the circumstances I find that the Crown has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this pattern shows a high likelihood of inflicting severe psychological damage, and that therefore the Crown has not established this criterion,” she decided.
“There is no evidence that any of the victims in the past offences have suffered severe psychological damage, and it is not reasonable to infer that if the pattern is repeated that there is a high likelihood of inflicting severe psychological damage on other persons.”
Norell determined the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt “that there is a high likelihood of infliction of severe psychological damage in the future.
“In summary, I find that the Crown has not met the evidentiary burden on it to have Mr. Prokopchuk declared a dangerous offender. The degree of likely psychological damage in any future offence does not rise to the degree required to justify a dangerous offender designation.”
On the long-term offender designation, the judge found the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt there’s a “substantial risk Prokopchuk will re-offend” and she noted that Prokopchuk “does not argue otherwise.”
Ultimately Norell concluded there is a “reasonable possibility of eventual control of Mr. Prokopchuk’s risk in the community.
“In summary, there are bases to conclude that there is a reasonable possibility of eventual control in the community. Mr. Prokopchuk has some, but perhaps not deep, understanding of the help he needs, but not the tools. He is intelligent and can learn. If stabilized psychiatrically, he should be more amenable to programming,” she concluded.