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VandenElsen: 'It's a crime to keep me in jail.' 
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Finck: Requested house arrest or time served. 
TIM KROCHAK / Staff
A sheriff, standing beside documents from the Finck / VandenElsen trial, locks the door to Courtroom 3 at Supreme Court in Halifax Wednesday after the couple were sentenced. | Standoff duo get multi-year sentences VandenElsen give n 3 1/2 years, Finck 4 1/2 years in custody fight gone wrong By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG / Staff Reporter Over a year after the armed stan doff that cost them their infant daughter and their freedom, Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck still don't fully understand what they've done, a judge says. "Like Ms. VandenElsen, Mr. Finck appears to have little appreciatio n for the seriousness of his unlawful conduct or the danger he put his child in," Supreme Court Justice Robert Wright said Wednesday in sentencing the couple to prison time. "Like Ms. VandenElsen, he blames everyone but himself." After two days of hearings, Justice Wright sentenced Mr. Finck to 4 1/2 years i n prison and Ms. VandenElsen to 3 1/2 years for their roles in the May 2004 standoff on Halifax's Shirley Street. In contrast to their frequent outbursts at earlier court appearances, the couple showed little reaction to the ruling: Ms. VandenElsen was busy writing, while Mr. Finck sat back in his chair. "They made deliberate plans to carry out what they did, and this is where they ended up," Crown Rick Woodburn said outside court after the ruling. The Crown had asked for a five-year term for Mr. Finck for child abduction contrary to a court order. Mr. Woodburn based that on the circumstances and the fact Mr. Finck committed the Halifax offence while still on probation after serving two years for abducting his daughter, from a previous relationship, from her legal guardian in Ontario. Earlier in the day, Mr. Finck had asked the judge for house arrest or time served, saying, "Anything further is excessive." "Both are out of the question," replied the judge. Justice Wright agreed Mr. Finck should serve more time than he did for the first abduction, but said the Crown's request was "a notch too far." Mr. Finck received 3 1/2 years for abduction and a year for possessing a shotgun, to be served consecutively. He also received six months for obstructing a police officer and two months for having an unregistered shotgun, to be served concurrently. The judge accepted the Crown's proposal about Ms. VandenElsen and gave her 18 months for abduction and two years, to be served consecutively, for using a gun while committing a crime. She was sentenced to a year concurrent for threatening to assault a police officer with the shotgun, obstructing a police officer, having an unregistered shotgun and having a shotgun for a purpose dangerous to the public peace. The judge gave the couple the customary double credit for the time they've already served. Mr. Finck, who's been in jail since his May 2004 arrest, will see 26 1/2 months shaved off his term, while 200 days will be cut from Ms. VandenElsen's. In the end, Mr. Finck will serve less time than his wife, who has been free most of the time while awaiting, and going to, trial. He also issued mandatory firearms prohibition orders and a DNA order for Ms. VandenElsen. The couple came to Nova Scotia from Stratford, Ont., in November 2003 when Ms. VandenElsen lost access to her triplets from a previous marriage after a lengthy custody battle. She was already pregnant and feared child welfare workers would take the baby. Ms. VandenElsen told the court they moved into the home of Mona Finck, Mr. Finck's mother, at 6161 Shirley St., to start their lives over. Mona Finck died of natural causes during the standoff. "I have significant remorse for not terminating my pregnancy when my mother instincts told me that my unborn child would face grave peril," she said Wednesday. The Children's Aid Society in Halifax applied to the court for supervision orders at the family home and psychological and parental assessments. Given the reports about the couple and Mr. Finck's behaviour in family court, Justice Wright said, the court ordered the child placed in temporary care. Ms. VandenElsen fled with the baby, and Mr. Finck continued to appear in court. He admitted during the criminal trial that he lied in family court - he did in fact know where his wife and baby were. They eventually came home, and the couple planned to leave the country. When police found them at the Shirley Street home on May 19, 2004, the couple refused to let them in and barricaded the door. Pellets from a shotgun fired inside the home passed just inches from a police officer's head. The emergency response team was called in and the longest standoff in Halifax history began. Ms. VandenElsen repeated Wednesday that "Big Mona," her mother-in-law, fired the gun, but Justice Wright reminded her a jury convicted her of that offence. The couple endangered their then-five-month-old baby, the judge said, when they carried her onto a porch overhang and displayed her to reporters and police. They used the standoff to further their "ridiculous theories" that various agencies - the courts, police and child protection agencies - are plotting to sell children to the childless. Despite repeated warnings by police, "in an act of self-indulgence and outright recklessness," Mr. Finck was carrying a loaded shotgun when he came out of the house on the evening of May 21 with his wife and baby. The couple carried the body of his mother on a makeshift stretcher. "It's indeed fortunate that no one got hurt," Justice Wright said. As her sentencing submission, Ms. VandenElsen read from 10 pages of handwritten notes, which Justice Wright termed a "political statement." She said police "unnecessarily created a massive public spectacle" through the standoff "to sensationalize and justify their earlier actions." "It's a crime to keep me in jail," she read. Facing a mandatory one-year sentence on the weapons charge, Ms. VandenElsen said the only remedy was to return all her children to her. "I can't change who I am," she told the judge. "I understand I can't change the system." Justice Wright said: "Ms. VandenElsen, it's never too late to turn your life around." "I tried that and look where I am," she replied. A handful of supporters attended the hearing Wednesday afternoon, including Mary MacDonald. The Halifax woman, who knows Ms. VandenElsen "very casually," said the sentence was harsh. "It will obviously cause her a great deal of grief," she said. "I would have preferred that Ms. VandenElsen be reunited with her baby daughter rather than go to prison." Another supporter, Halifax's Marilyn Dey, was displeased but not surprised by the sentence. The woman, who's known Mr. Finck since his first court case in Ontario, wished the judge had spoken about the pair's emotions because the whole situation involved the apprehension of their child. "The judge didn't even go there. There was no concern for what they were going through at the time." Justice Wright noted the couple's "contemptuous conduct at trial," which he said "ranged from the belligerent to the bizarre." Despite that behaviour, their lack of participation in preparation of a presentence report and their apparent disregard for assessments, he recommended they receive psychological counselling in prison. "Their co-operation may appear to be a dim prospect at the moment," he said, "but it is still worth a try."
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