Breaking into court to get arrested
A Kamloops man who was arrested after being found inside the courthouse after hours earlier this month will spend the next two months in jail.
Ian Frederick Friesinger was handed a 60-day jail sentence in Kamloops provincial court last week (Sept. 15) after pleading guilty to one count of breaching his probation.
The 32-year-old had also been charged with mischief, but that count was stayed by the Crown.
Friesinger entered the courthouse on the evening of Sept. 7, when cleaning staff left a door near the judges’ parking lot propped open while they used chemicals to treat floors.
Friesinger walked through the open door and down a hallway in a highly secure section of the courthouse usually only accessible to judges, court clerks and sheriffs.
Friesinger eventually wound up in front of Courtroom 2D — the same courtroom in which he eventually entered his guilty plea.
The cleaning staff called police, who arrived a short time later and arrested Friesinger.
Crown prosecutor Steve Lawhead said the courthouse trespassing incident was the latest in a string of bizarre episodes involving Friesinger in recent months.
It started on March 27, when Friesinger took a patio chair from outside a downtown coffee shop and sat on it in the middle of Third Avenue.
He then smashed the window of a parked car with the chair before police arrived and arrested him.
In July, Friesinger was arrested and charged with uttering threats after he threatened to kill a Kamloops Men’s Hostel employee and a police officer.
On Aug. 23, after being sentenced to time served for those incidents, Friesinger was about to be released from custody at the Kamloops Law Courts when sheriffs found him with a piece of broken glass he had removed from a light fixture.
He threatened to harm himself and emergency crews were called to the scene.
In the first week of September, court heard, police were called to deal with Friesinger no less than seven times — including an incident at the courthouse hours before he was found inside the building after operating hours.
While visiting with his probation officer to discuss living arrangements, Lawhead said, Friesinger became frustrated and threatened to break a window.
He was arrested and released at the scene.
Lawhead described Friesinger’s behaviour at the courthouse as “dangerous” in asking for a two-month jail term.
“He had to know there would be consequences and I suggest he wanted the consequences,” Lawhead said.
Friesinger, who has recently started taking medication to help with his behavioural problems, said he wanted to be arrested — which, he said, is why he entered the courthouse.
“I just wish to take my meds in prison,” Friesinger said.
Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame handed Friesinger a 60-day jail sentence and placed him on 18 months of probation.
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