The Editor,
Re: "Theft of dogs results in conditional sentence," the Now, Feb. 26.
We read with interest, that Judge Melissa Gillespie of the Provincial Court in Surrey, has seen fit to allow convicted dog thief and break-and-enter artist, Janet Olson, to attend a family reunion in Ontario before giving her a conditional sentence for the same crime committed time and time again.
Her reasoning for doing so is because she saw Olson as "a vigilante" of sorts.
Gillespie goes on to say that Olson was "passionate about her cause" and that the judge considered her pursuits to be noble.
How very expansive of her. We know, too, that there is a lady of equal passion and nobleness who, despite having merely held protests within a prescribed bubble zone, against the destruction of unborn humans has so far spent more time behind bars than most murderers or child molesters, here in B.C. Her name is Linda Gibbons and it seems odd that there is to be no consideration given to her for her vigilantism.
There is also, in Ontario, a woman called Mary Wagner, (whose visage now appears on postage stamps in Poland), who is doing time for the heinous crime of handing out roses at an abortion clinic in Toronto.
Yet she is not seen as a prisoner of conscience. How so?
Larry Bennett, Bennett