ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The fact that Leonard Clarke was the getaway driver and not the one who actually held up a Conception Bay South drugstore, saying, “It’s a holdup,” and, “This is a real gun,” doesn’t make his crimes any less serious, Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Chief Justice Raymond Whalen said Wednesday as he sentenced Clarke, 63, to five years in prison.
He also had words about gun violence in the province and the need to deter anyone who might consider following in Clarke’s footsteps.
“The sentence must send a message to like-minded individuals that such behaviour, armed robbery, will not be tolerated in our community,” Whalen said. “We have not seen the level of gun violence in our community as in other parts of the world and while any specific sentence must fit the crime and the offender, sentences for armed robbery must reflect our intolerance to such criminal activities and the use of guns in the commission of such offences.”
Clarke’s lawyer, Mary Boulos, had argued for a four-year jail term for her client, saying he would get no more out of an extra year in prison, given his age and health condition, and the results of a pre-sentence report, which indicated Clarke has potential for rehabilitation.
“He’s not the best person in Newfoundland, but given his characteristics and situation, his family background, his love for his children, that he’s doing what he can, that he indicated he hasn’t used cocaine in four to five years and indicated he has had no alcohol since the day of the offence, those are ways of interpreting remorse,” Boulos had argued.
Prosecutor Alison Doyle argued for a five-year sentence, pointing out Clarke has an extensive criminal record and was the getaway driver in a daylight armed robbery in which almost $5,000 worth of narcotics were stolen and a store employee was left traumatized.
“We have not seen the level of gun violence in our community as in other parts of the world ... sentences for armed robbery must reflect our intolerance to such criminal activities and the use of guns in the commission of such offences.” — Supreme Court Chief Justice Raymond Whalen
The judge noted Clarke’s previous convictions had not included robbery.
“On this occasion, the offender escalated his life of crime to a new level by now setting out in concert with another to commit, and did commit, an armed robbery,” Whalen said. “Looking at the offender’s background and obvious involvement with drugs, it may be easy to speculate that the motive for robbing the pharmacy was to gain access to narcotics. It is irrelevant. The offender and his partner in crime were apparently prepared to put lives at risk by committing the robbery using a weapon. Mr. Clarke fully supported a masked gunman to commit the robbery, terrorizing the employees of the pharmacy and putting at risk the lives of innocent bystanders.”
Clarke was convicted last November after a trial of robbing Green’s Pharmacy the afternoon of June 7, 2017.
Video evidence and testimony of four witnesses led to Whalen finding Clarke was the getaway driver in the robbery, waiting in a van near the drugstore with the engine running, then speeding away once the robber ran out of the building and got aboard.
“He’s not the best person in Newfoundland, but given his characteristics and situation, his family background, his love for his children, that he’s doing what he can, that he indicated he hasn’t used cocaine in four to five years and indicated he has had no alcohol since the day of the offence, those are ways of interpreting remorse." — Defence lawyer Mary Boulos
One pharmacy employee told the court the robber had told staff, “It’s a holdup,” yelling at people to “get back” and saying, “Hurry up, this is a real gun.” A second employee testified she had been in a back room when she heard shouting and realized a robbery was happening. She left through a back door and, with no cellphone, approached a man sitting in what she thought was a delivery van in a nearby parking lot to ask him to call police.
She told the court the man had said “F---, f---, f---” when she told him the drugstore was being robbed. A masked man came running toward the van at that moment with a bag and a gun, she testified. He got into the van and told the driver to “F---ing drive” before the vehicle sped away.
The woman made note of the van’s licence plate number and gave it to police. Police identified Clarke — who owned a similar van, had a licence plate number that was one digit off from the number the woman provided and lived within a kilometre of the drugstore — as a suspect and the woman identified Clarke in a photo lineup. The second man was never identified.
In arriving at his sentencing decision, Whalen considered the employee’s victim impact statement, in which she described nightmares, anxiety and hyper-vigilance as a result of the trauma from the incident.
“When I’m driving and I meet a white van, my heart rate increases,” the woman wrote. “I instantly slow down, checking to see what the driver looks like, wondering if it’s the same guy, same van, looking in my rearview mirror to check out the licence plate number.”
Twitter @tara_bradbury
