Sooke arsonist sent to treatment centre

A man who set fire to a homeless shelter in Sooke six months ago has been sent to a residential treatment centre to deal with substance abuse and trauma.

On Wednesday in Western Communities provincial court, Robert Dick, 42, pleaded guilty to arson. Judge Ted Gouge sentenced him to time served — the equivalent of 220 days in jail — and placed him on one year of probation with conditions to attend a recovery program and take forensic counselling.

Defence lawyer Tom Morino said Dick was asked to leave the 18-bed shelter on Otter Point Road on March 25 because he was smoking heroin. “Without anything to do and nowhere to go, he got upset and angry and he started to break up a bit of furniture,” said Morino. “In anger and frustration, he set his bed in his sleeping pod alight.”

Police, who were called out to the disturbance, saw smoke and helped evacuate the building. Once all residents were accounted for, shelter staff and officers tried to put out the fire. The fire department arrived and extinguished the fire and the shelter was able to stay open. No one was injured.

Police arrested Dick a short time later on a B.C. Transit bus.

Morino told the court that Dick is Inuit and has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. “He has been subject to all the abuse we now recognize so many young First Nations people are subjected to,” said the defence lawyer.

Dick was four or five years old when he and his father moved to Sooke. He was in and out of foster homes during his childhood. When Dick was 15, his father died of drug use, leaving Dick essentially homeless, said Morino.

A psychiatric assessment prepared for the court found Dick struggles with depressive mood symptoms, emotional dysregulation and trauma-related anxiety.

“We have a bed in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility for him and he’s been directed to go there and will attend a recovery program,” said Morino.