Churchill photo thief sentenced to two years in jail
Jeffrey Wood had pleaded guilty to stealing the original print from Ottawa's Château Laurier hotel between Christmas 2021 and early January 2022. He also admitted committing forgery.
The photo of Britain's war-time prime minister, taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1941, features on the UK £5 note.
Ottawa Police said it was found last year in Genoa, Italy in the possession of a private buyer, who was unaware it was stolen.
The image depicts a frowning Churchill, who was 67 at the time, shortly after he delivered a speech to the Canadian parliament.
It wasn't until August 2022 that a hotel staff member realised the original photo had been replaced with a fake.
According to Canadian media, Wood said he took the photo to find money for his brother, who was suffering from mental health problems.
During sentencing, Justice Robert Wadden said: "It is a point of national pride that a portrait taken by a Canadian photographer would have achieved such fame."
"There is an element of trust in our society that allows such properties to be displayed, to be enjoyed by all Canadians. To steal, damage and traffic in such property is to breach that trust," he added.
"We're very happy to see that Canadian history is recognised," said Geneviève Dumas, the general manager of the Château Laurier hotel, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Wood was sentenced to "two years less a day", a distinction which means he will serve his sentence in a provincial institution instead of a federal prison.
The lawyer representing Wood said the sentence was "unnecessarily harsh" given that he was a first-time offender.
Churchill photo stolen in Canada discovered in Italy
Iconic Churchill photo vanishes from Canada hotel
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Johnson: Hockey trial raised new questions about women and perceived threats
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Why would a woman offer herself up to a group of men she doesn't know if she wasn't actually 'into it'? I drove from Ottawa to London three times during the now-infamous 'hockey players trial' to find the answer to this question. I observed E.M. (as the complainant is known) testify for two days under cross-examination. I saw the videos where she looks straight into hockey player Michael McLeod's camera and says she's good with it all. I heard Crown and defence counsels' full closing submissions. The episode at the Delta Armouries on the night of June 18, 2018 involved strapping, fully-clothed, intoxicated young men in a hotel room in the middle of the night with a small, naked, intoxicated young woman. You need only imagine your own daughter or granddaughter in that room to appreciate the power imbalance. But the situation presents in some confusing ways. Not only did E.M. not leave the hotel room when it seems she had opportunity to do so, she appears to have participated enthusiastically in sexual activity with the men. If she didn't want to have sex with them, why did she? If she wasn't OK with it, why would she say she was? Fight, flight, freeze and fawn are well-documented responses to trauma. But facilitate? E.M. testified that she adopted 'a porn star persona' in the hotel room. Why would a woman enable her own sexual abuse? Indeed, this was the dilemma confronting the judge, who acquitted the five hockey players charged. She also said she did not find E.M. to be a credible witness. *** I have worked with survivors of male violence for decades, but E.M.'s actions in the hotel room didn't seem to fit with those I'd seen before. I needed to think it through; to see E.M., and hear the facts, for myself. I went to London with an open but educated mind, like an oncologist studying an unusual pattern of symptoms. It's an eight-hour drive and I had a lot of time to think. If fewer than six per cent of sexual assaults are reported to police, how much can we really know about how a woman responds when she is naked in a room full of men eager for sex? *** Arriving at the courthouse the first day, I encounter a group of women demonstrating in support of the complainant. It seems every woman I speak with is there because she has been sexually assaulted. I ask if they are coming inside to witness the trial. They all say no, it would be too 'triggering' — code for 'never resolved.' Few would have seen justice for their assault. One woman tells me her own case is before the courts right now. *** Observing E.M. on the stand, I find her dignified, and as credible as any assaulted woman I've met, and these number in the thousands. Her answers in cross-examination are thoughtful, nuanced, understated. In my experience, victims of male violence do not embellish. If anything, they minimize; you have to drag what happened out of them. If anything, they are abundantly fair, taking the blame when they shouldn't; often showing compassion for the perpetrator. E.M.'s behaviour following the alleged assaults was entirely consistent with this. She was ashamed; blamed herself; didn't want to go to police; didn't want to get anybody in trouble. But her actions in the hotel room remained a conundrum for me. *** On my second trip to London, I meet a young woman who has also come to observe the trial. We go for lunch to discuss the case. I ask her if she understands why a woman would act like she's enjoying herself in a situation where she claims to be afraid. 'I totally understand it,' she said. 'A similar thing happened to me.' She tells me that she and a friend recently found themselves in a situation with two guys they'd met at a concert. The men said they knew where the after-party was and invited them along. The women were taken to an isolated apartment building. Turns out the men were human traffickers. When they realized they were in serious trouble, the women did not protest or try to leave but began to play along, acting like they were enjoying themselves. It was as if some primal survival instinct kicked in. When the men were transporting them to an alternate location, they made a run for it. They are convinced that had they resisted or shown fear, they might have been seriously harmed. *** Judith Herman, foremost expert on trauma in the aftermath of violence, writes that it's easy to take the side of the perpetrator. 'The perpetrator asks nothing of us, appealing to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the other hand, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.' I begin to remember all the cases I've worked on where women acted in ways that were counterintuitive. All the women who offered sex to avoid a beating, to protect their children, or to buy time until they could safely get away. If she can keep him calm, maybe he won't hurt her. If she shows fear or distress, it might trigger rage or shame in him, which could be deadly for her. We're always telling women they should have 'just left.' I remember all the funerals I've been to for women who have 'just left.' I remember the 2012 Delhi bus rape, where a young couple returning from a night at the cinema were attacked by five men and a boy. The woman fought back and later died of her injuries. Like the men of Mazan, France who lined up to abuse the unconscious Gisèle Pelicot, the Delhi rapists were, by all accounts, ordinary, apparently normal men. I remember what it is to be a woman. *** The problem we have as women is that we have no way of knowing which man is going to hurt us. No woman knows what any man, or group of men, might do to her, especially when aroused or inflamed Every woman knows this fear. We know it when we are riding a bike on a back road and a car slows down. We know it when we are walking in the woods and come upon a man, or group of men. We know it when we are by ourselves in any isolated location. The guy in the car might be looking for directions. The men in the woods might be birdwatching. But for a woman alone, these men are threats, and if she is lucky her survival instincts will kick in if required. E.M. told the court she was slapped and spit on, and that the men mused about inserting a golf club and golf balls inside her. She testified she was drunk, scared, overwhelmed, humiliated; that her mind separated from her body; and that she did what she had to do to get through it. She said that she assumed a coping strategy that she herself didn't completely understand; that's why she couldn't really explain it. She gives them sex because she knows that's what they want. What will happen if she resists? She doesn't know. The problem we have as women is that we have no way of knowing which man is going to hurt us. But we don't believe her. 'Nobody forced her to do anything. If anything we should put charges on her,' said Brett Howden, who was in the room, but was not charged. What would have happened if E.M. had walked out of that room crying? They would have certainly known she was upset. I'm not implying that these particular men would have harmed E.M. I'm saying that there would have been no way for her to know what they might do. *** I returned to London on July 24 for the verdicts. Justice Maria Carroccia found E.M. neither credible nor reliable, excoriating her in a 90-page judgment and acquitting the defendants on all counts. This time, the court was filled with rape survivors. Leaving the courthouse was like walking through a battlefield in the aftermath of war, the defeated troops lying scattered in the ditches; maimed, disgraced, demoralized. Said one woman: 'This verdict has screamed to men, from every platform, you are good guys … and you will get away with it. ' But all is not lost. When we take the long view, we have every reason to celebrate this trial as an important chapter in the battle for women's rights. It has changed the landscape for women in Canada. E.M.'s contribution in coming forward, taking on not just five men but the entire hockey establishment, cannot be overstated. If Gisèle Pelicot in France taught women to beware of chemical submission, E.M. has shone a light on women's behaviour under what they believe to be a conscious threat. I am loathe to put it in these terms, but she has also taught women a survival strategy. I hope this case opens the floodgates for victims of sexual assault. May they come forward in droves demanding justice from our courts as they better understand their own complicated reactions in situations of perceived peril; as they come to realize that, in a world rife with violence against women, their 'consent' was, to use the legal term, vitiated: impaired by threat or the perception of threat. Donna F. Johnson helped establish Canada's first monument to murdered women in Minto Park, Ottawa. She has worked as a crisis counsellor in an urban police service, taught feminist social work practice, educated judges on domestic violence and published countless essays on abused women. She is on the Canadian team for Hague Mothers, a global campaign aimed at ending the injustices created by the Hague Convention for mothers and children fleeing abusive men. She is the author of Shattered Motherhood; Surviving the Guilt of a Child's Suicide. Related Johnson: The murder of Hanadi Mohamed — her husband didn't act alone Ford: Hockey Canada trial should put spotlight on morality of society
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
B.C. man lied to steal brothers' A&W franchise, court rules
A man who tried to steal a fast food franchise owned by his two brothers was excoriated by a B.C. Supreme Court judge, who called him 'dishonest, entitled, ungrateful and jealous.' Norman and Bradley Phaneuf sued their brother, Vern Phaneuf, for claiming 50 per cent ownership of A&W restaurants they operated in Maple Ridge and for trying to cut them out of any profits from the restaurants — all because of a paperwork error. 'The consequence of this error, if allowed to stand, is that Vern … would be entitled to receive 100 per cent of the profit which was created by Norman's and Bradley's successful entrepreneurial efforts,' the judge wrote in a decision made on Thursday. The case stems from a holding company the brothers created for several new franchise locations they were planning to open in 2010 thanks to an expansion opportunity offered by A&W. All four brothers were shareholders in the holding company. Norman and Bradley, who ran the restaurants, owned 80 per cent. They offered 10 per cent each to Vern and Terry (now deceased), in non-voting class B shares, as gifts. Vern had done accounting work for the family's previous franchises and Terry had provided loans. When the ownership documents were being amended, Norman and Bradley's shares were mistakenly listed as 'non-participating,' which means they are not entitled to profits from the restaurants, while Terry and Vern's shares were 'participating,' giving them access to dividends and sale proceeds, despite only making up 20 per cent of shares. Vern, a certified public accountant with a Bachelor's degree who works as an investment banker, drew up the paperwork. Norman and Bradley, neither of which had a post-secondary education, told the judge they did not understand or know what the terms 'participating' or 'non-participating' meant. As a result of the error, which was only discovered in 2020, Vern claimed that he and Terry owned 50 per cent each of the holding company that controlled the franchises as part of a 'de facto shareholders' agreement' that would see Norman and Bradley's shares redistributed. The judge rejected the claim as 'irrational and nonsensical.' 'It defies all logic and credulity to believe that Norman and Bradley would invest heavily and work tirelessly in businesses they had no ownership interest in,' Basran wrote, calling Vern's claim 'irrational, self-interested, and a seeming product of his imagination.' 'Vern fabricated this entire 'de facto shareholders' agreement' narrative to try to take advantage of the mistake in the articles of the companies that describes the class A shares as 'non-participating', in an attempt to benefit himself,' Basran wrote. Basran praised the evidence from Norman and Bradley as 'logical, forthright, straightforward, consistent, and coherent.' The judge had far harsher comments for Vern's testimony, noting that he 'lied repeatedly and unrelentingly,' and that 'virtually every element of his evidence lacked truth, clarity, and logic.' The judge pointed out that despite claiming he always knew how the shares were structured, Vern originally denied that he created the shareholder documents. Vern also claimed that his brothers lured him to B.C. from a partnership in a Saskatchewan accounting firm, with an offer of 25 per cent ownership of one of the franchises. The judge pointed out that in reality, Vern received a 50 per cent interest in the franchise and that he had never been a partner in the accounting firm. 'This evidence cannot be reconciled because it is a fiction unsupported by any documents or logic,' the judge wrote. @njgriffiths ngriffiths@ Related B.C. woman sues psychiatrist, says prescribed drug made her gamble away her home equity, shop excessively B.C. court overrules 'biased' will that left $2.9 million to son, $170,000 to daughter
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘I stole £3k-a-day in high street shoplifting sprees – it became an addiction'
For one of the most prolific shoplifters in the UK, every operation would begin the same way. The night before, Cullan Mais would load up Google Maps on his mobile phone and mark out a 'fishing rod-like' route through several towns to finish back in his home city of Cardiff. He'd call his driver and the next morning he would embark on a lucrative shoplifting spree, making off with up to £3,000 worth of goods, from food to sunglasses and even Yankee candles. 'I wouldn't leave a shop empty-handed, sometimes I'd go in two or three times,' said the 34-year-old, who highlighted Co-op supermarkets, Specsavers and garden centres as among his top targets. Wearing a trenchcoat, he could fit more than a dozen bottles of spirits in his clothing before walking up to the till to buy a pack of chewing gum to avoid detection. And it worked. 'I had a lavish lifestyle because anything I ever needed, whether it was food, clothes, alcohol or something for the missus, I just stole it,' he said. Over 10 years, Mais estimates he stole more than £3m worth of items from shops, almost all of it offloaded to a network of 'buyers' for cash to buy heroin. He rarely got caught. In total, he was sentenced to prison on 10 occasions, six of them for shoplifting. But nothing could stop him at the height of his criminality, and to Mais, the thrill of shoplifting became as big an addiction as the drugs he was taking. He said: 'I was hitting multiple shops a day, so to get caught once every two years, it's pretty good going, you know, and even if I had £2,000 in my pocket, I'd still go shoplifting the next day. 'It became an addiction I got a buzz out of, like I've accomplished something.' Mais finally got help after being rushed to hospital with sepsis and pneumonia in 2020. 'I was at rock bottom and knew then I just had to get clean,' he said. He received rehabilitation to help him recover from his heroin and shoplifting addiction. Now, he runs a podcast on which he hopes to help others trapped in the offending cycle. It comes as the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales climbed to another record high in 2024-25, up 20 per cent from 2023-24. Last month, home secretary Yvette Cooper announced a new crime 'blitz' to crack down on crime, featuring more visible policing and stronger enforcement in a bid to restore confidence in policing. But as The Independent revealed recently, shopkeepers are struggling against the wave of shoplifting offences. Mais puts the increase in offences down to the cost-of-living crisis and an inability to deal with offenders. He even suggests there should be a specific rehabilitation programme for shoplifters. 'Our justice system is broken,' he said. 'I think more people need to be supported in the community, some shouldn't be going to jail because jail isn't working. They come out of jail, and they've reoffended again.' Police forces are taking an innovative approach to dealing with shoplifters. West Midlands Police's Offending 2 Recovery team, set up in 2018, tackles thefts fuelled by drug addiction. Measures include placing offenders into residential rehabs and good-quality abstinence-based recovery communities. On his work today, Mais said: 'I'm now owning up for what I've done, educating people, preventing shopkeepers from losing more money and helping those who are stuck in the same cycle as I was, giving them the hope that they can change.' Solve the daily Crossword
