Convictions upheld in Surrey kidnapping case
A dangerous offender who was found guilty of a string of charges related to the 2003 kidnapping of his cousin in Surrey has lost an appeal of his convictions.
Daniel Lewis Allan was convicted of breaking and entering, kidnapping with intent to confine, unlawful confinement, aggravated assault, robbery, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose in connection with the kidnapping of his cousin, Allan Sutton, from Sutton's home in Surrey on Aug. 29, 2003.
Sutton, a lawyer, had testified that he was getting ready to go to work when his cousin, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, unexpectedly appeared in his home in Surrey. He recalled telling Allan he had to go to work but that was the last thing he remembered until he woke up in hospital three weeks later after passers-by had found him, badly beaten, and lying at the side of rural McMillan Road in Surrey.
Justice Anne Mackenzie - who has since been appointed from B.C. Supreme Court to the B.C.'s Court of Appeal - sentenced Allan in 2009 to an indeterminate period of time in prison after declaring him to be a dangerous offender.
Allan was 47 when his cousin was kidnapped.
The court heard he told a cellmate he'd "piped" Sutton in the head.
Allan had 52 criminal convictions prior to this case. In 1984 he was convicted of manslaughter after beating a man in the face with a golf club and then burying his body in the back yard of a house he'd been renting in London, Ontario.
In relation to his cousin's kidnapping, Allan sought acquittals on the aggravated assault, possession of a weapon, kidnapping and unlawful confinement charges and either an acquittal or new trial on the breaking and entering and robbery charges.
But Justice David Frankel, of the B.C. Court of Appeal, dismissed Allan's appeal, finding he was "essentially" trying to re-argue the case.
"He challenges the trial judge's findings of credibility and the inferences she drew from the facts she found," Frankel found. "I can see no basis on which to intervene with the trial judge's findings and conclusions."
Justices Kathryn Neilson and Elizabeth Bennett concurred with Frankel,