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Charles Maskell

The Crown is seeking a four-year sentence for a 61-year-old man who shot his tenant two years ago.

Charles Maskell was arrested on Dec. 2, 2016, after police attended his home on West Kelowna's Granada Crescent for a report of a shooting.

Maskell had shot his tenant, Robert Delve, and he was charged with attempted murder.

During his sentencing hearing Friday, Maskell's lawyer Paul McMurray said his client had rented out rooms in his home to Delve and Tyson Bone after his mother and brother he had been living with passed away. Struggling to pay the mortgage on the home, Maskell rented his home to “what turned out to be questionable characters,” McMurray said.

The tenants “saw him as vulnerable” and began selling drugs from the house while “getting (Maskell) addicted to drugs again.” Maskell also alleges Delve stole $15,000 from his bank account after he gave Delve his PIN number, but he could not provide the court with any proof of this.

Becoming “increasingly fearful and paranoid,” Maskell kept an unregistered antique handgun he had bought at a garage sale in his room, and on the day of the shooting, Maskell says Delve pushed him and threatened to “cave his head in.”

In response, Maskell pulled out the gun and shot Delve, injuring him.

After the shooting, police found evidence that drugs, including cocaine and GHB, were being trafficked out of the home.

While Maskell was initially charged with attempted murder, and additional charges of attempted murder for a criminal organization, aggravated assault and unlawfully discharging a firearm were added four months later, he took a plea deal with the Crown, pleading guilty in September to the lesser offence of assault causing bodily harm and possessing a loaded restricted firearm.

Maskell also pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon, stemming from an Aug. 1, 2018, incident at the Kelowna Walmart, where Maskell was caught by a security guard stealing meat while on bail. In response, Maskell discharged a can of bear spray in the store.

While Crown prosecutor Nick Lerfold is seeking a 3.5 to four year sentence for the shooting plus an additional six months for the bear spray incident, McMurray suggested a day under a two-year sentence, in addition to the 150 days he's spent in jail since his arrest in August, would be appropriate.

A sentence under two years will allow Maskell to serve his time at a provincial institution, rather than a federal prison.

Burdett is scheduled to sentence Maskell on Jan. 14.