Author of the article: The Whig-Standard Publishing date: Apr 09, 2021 • 6 hours ago • 13 minute read Article content A compilation of offences from Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice for the period of Dec. 28, 2020, to Jan. 8, 2021. Only sentences that involved a large fine, probation or incarceration are included. Matthew J. Babcock, 36, was convicted of violating probation he received in May 2019 by failing to report to his probation officer in July that year and again between March and May 2020; obstructing police in early December 2019 by misidentifying himself to an officer and another, related violation of his probation by failing to keep the peace; plus a theft from No Frills at 1162 Division St. on New Year’s Eve 2019; and an additional breach of probation by neglecting to pay $400 restitution ordered by the court. He was given enhanced credit on 76 days of pretrial custody, sentenced to time served, and Justice Alison Wheeler issued a free-standing restitution order against him for payment of his outstanding $400 debt. Assistant Crown attorney Elisabeth Foxton told the judge that at the beginning of December 2019, Kingston Police were dispatched to a west-end Princess Street motel to investigate reports of a loud dispute coming from one of the rooms. Justice Alison Wheeler was told the officers noted drug paraphernalia scattered around when they entered, and they found Babcock hiding in the shower, refusing to come out. When he did, Foxton said, he initially gave police a name and birthdate that weren’t his. He eventually admitted the lie, she said, and revealed there was a warrant out for his arrest, which they then executed. Babcock was later released, however, and Foxton told the judge that he was back in trouble by the end of the month, having been caught by store security at the Division Street No Frills with $20 worth of stolen merchandise. The judge was told Babcock managed to get away from the store’s loss prevention officer but was intercepted by responding Kingston Police officers, who recognized him from the description they’d been given and spotted him a short distance from the supermarket. Released again, Foxton said, Babcock stopped reporting to his probation officer in mid-March 2020 and told the judge that in the 19 months since he was given probation, he had made no payments on the restitution he owes a Walmart shopper whose purse he dipped in February 2019. Babcock told the judge he stole from No Frills because he was hungry, claimed he couldn’t report to his probation officer because of the pandemic and said it’s taken all this time for him to put some cash together to pay restitution. His lawyer, Doug Caldwell, told the judge that Babcock receives Ontario Disability Support Program benefits and noted that he had no criminal record until six years ago, in December. Two years before that, Caldwell said, his client’s girlfriend was killed in a collision on Middle Road and in May 2019 he also lost his father. He has no siblings, Caldwell added, “so Mr. Babcock is alone in the world, a circumstance that’s quite hard for him.”