Jail for 18-year-old car thief

Photo: Connor McCron

A Lake Country man snapped a photo of Orin Lucas after he caught the young man trying to break into his car.

An 18-year-old Kelowna man who stole at least four vehicles, seriously injured a man in a crash and assaulted another with bear spray, all in the past six months, will spend three more months behind bars.

A stolen Ford F-150 pickup crossed the centre line of Leathead Road and collided with a red Mitsubishi Outlander on Dec. 5, 2018, seriously injuring the young man behind the wheel of the SUV.

Orin Lucas, the 18-year-old driving the stolen truck, fled the scene, hiding in a nearby industrial area until he was located by a police service dog. 

On Wednesday, Lucas pleaded guilty to nine charges from seven different incidents dating back to last November.

The first occurred on Nov. 7, when Lucas pulled up next to a young man on Saucier Avenue and called the man's brother “a goof.” He then punched the man in the head with a “Tazer glove,” and sprayed him with pepper spray before driving away. 

A month later, police found Lucas in a stolen Honda Accord on Morrison Road the night of Dec. 4, and they followed him as he drove downtown. While police surveilled Lucas for some time, they eventually lost him.

The very next morning, Lucas crashed the stolen truck into the Mitsubishi SUV in Rutland. The driver of the SUV was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries to his hip and pelvis, a lacerated spleen, multiple facial fractures, a perforated bowel and other soft tissue injuries.

Despite his arrest, two months later Lucas was released on bail with an evening curfew.

During his bail hearing, Lucas's lawyer Michael Stephenson told the court the two months his client had spent at the Okanagan Correctional Centre had been an “eye-opening experience."

But just four days after his release, Lucas failed to answer the door when police made a curfew check on Feb. 11, and on Feb. 28 he failed to report to a scheduled meeting with his bail supervisor.

On Feb. 25, police found a stolen Honda Civic in Kelowna's Quail Ridge area with his fingerprints inside.

A month later, a police officer saw Lucas driving a stolen Honda CRV through the Wendy's drive-thru on Harvey Avenue on March 26, but the officer lost contact with him. Later that night, just after midnight, Connor McCron caught Lucas trying to break into his vehicle outside his home in Lake Country. McCron tackled Lucas and held him on the ground until police came, and Lucas was again arrested and charged.

He has remained in custody since his arrest, and on Wednesday, Justice Andrew Tam handed him a total sentence of nine months for the nine convictions.

Lucas was credited with six months of enhanced pre-sentence custody for the 116 days he's already spent behind bars, leaving him with another three months to serve. He'll serve 18 months of probation following his release.