A man who kidnapped a young waitress from a Maple Ridge mall and threatened her with a fake gun will spend the next four years in prison.
Ian James William Campbell was sentenced Wednesday to five years in a federal penitentiary, but credited for 261 days he’s spent in custody.
Jennifer Strain, a family friend of the victim, said the teen and her parents were pleased with Campbell’s sentence as it fit with what Crown was seeking. The girl’s identity is protected by a publication ban.
“They are relieved,” said Strain.
“Now we can move on. We don’t want him to get out early. He needs help and he needs to be rehabilitated.”
Campbell, 25, pleaded guilty to four of seven criminal charges, including using an imitation firearm, assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement and theft.
The 25-year-old has been in custody since he was arrested in Vancouver on Jan. 22 by members of the Vancouver Police Department’s Emergency Response Team and Ridge Meadows RCMP’s Street Enforcement Unit. His arrest came after a public appeal by police for tips in the violent abduction.
The ordeal for the teen began around 8 p.m. on Jan. 19, when Campbell approached her outside the Fox’s Reach Pub during a work break.
The court heard Campbell told the teen he needed help to start his broken down Cadillac sedan.
The girl went to help him, but when Campbell got into her car, he pulled out what she believed was a gun.
He yelled: “If you don’t cooperate, I will blow your ... brains out.”
Campbell then forced her to drive out of the mall in her red 1993 Honda Civic to a secluded area on Blackstock Street, where he punched and strangled her repeatedly.
Campbell also tied the teen’s hands with a dog leash and smashed her cell phone.
Badly beaten, the teen still managed to fight Campbell, ripping a gold cross off him during the struggle. She escaped to a nearby house.
Campbell apologized to the teen in court Wednesday.
At a sentencing hearing last week, his lawyer Sandy Ross stressed that Campbell has been remorseful from the beginning.
He wrote a letter to the teen and her family soon after his arrest.
A crack addict, Campbell blamed the drug for fuelling his crime spree.
On the day he abducted the teen, he had been smoking crack all day and was extremely paranoid.
Campbell believed he was being chased by drug dealers and thought the teen was involved with them.
Campbell has an extensive criminal record that begins in 2002, when he was a still a youth. It includes convictions for dangerous driving, assault and fleeing from police.
Court records show Campbell came from a dysfunctional family and spent his early years in foster care.
In 2008, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for stealing a car and leading police on a high-speed pursuit that ended with the death of passenger.
At that time, Campbell was part of a group of Surrey teens who called themselves “Cop Killing Villains.”
In a stolen SUV, Campbell rammed a police cruiser twice, prompting one of the officers to shoot and kill one of three passengers – 16-year-old Kyle Tait.