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The Abbotsford News has reported on the case of R. V. Kapoor that:
A woman has been sentenced to six months less a day in jail to be followed by three years of probation for making a false statement to a Surrey passport officer and attempting to set up a falsified passport for her infant child.
A jury convicted Sapna Kapoor, a 44-year-old Indian national with a master’s degree in business administration, of attempting to utter a forged passport application and making the false statement in late September and early October 2017. She was convicted after being tried before a judge and jury in 22-day trial at B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.
The court heard Kapoor had been married for 16 months before separating from her husband and in that time they had a son.
The Crown sought a jail term of six to 12 months in jail followed by probation conditions “crafted to minimize the risk of unauthorized removal of the child from Canada,” the judge noted, adding that the maximum sentence for attempting to set up a fraudulent passport is five years in prison and two years for knowingly lying to a passport officer. Blok noted “these maximums do demonstrate the seriousness with which Parliament views these types of offences.”
The defence argued for a conditional sentence order (house arrest). The judge, however, Kapoor’s “element of planning and implementation” to be an aggravating factor.
“These offences were not the result of momentary lapses of judgment,” he determined. “It is also an aggravating factor that Ms. Kapoor submitted this forged passport application for an infant against the express wishes of the father, the other parent, for the purposes of removing the child from this jurisdiction.”
Blok found Kapoor to be “unremorseful.” Given the importance of protecting the integrity of Canada’s passport system, he said, “general deterrence is a very important factor here.”
“She claims to have acted out of motherly love and that there was no risk of child abduction, but she has failed to recognize that her conduct reasonably gave rise to those very fears.”
Blok concluded that “only actual jail time would meet the sentencing objective of specific deterrence.”
“I have given careful thought to the length of sentence and I have given particular consideration to possible collateral immigration effects,” he said in his reasons for judgment. “”Ms. Kapoor may already have done irreparable damage to her future immigration status, but I am satisfied I can impose a sentence that meets all sentencing objectives here without creating potential immigration consequences.”
Among her probation conditions, Kapoor is not to take her son within a two-kilometre radius of Vancouver International Airport or within 100 metres of the Canada-U.S. border when he is in her custody or care.
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Justice Blok reviewed the law as follows:
49 I begin with a brief analysis of the cases cited by the Crown. The Crown said the case closest on point is Farhan, where an 18‑month sentence was imposed for obtaining passports using forged documents and for possessing eight forged passports. It was said that the offender had these documents, or acquired these documents, in an effort to retrieve his children, who were with his separated spouse in Kuwait and which spouse had legal custody pursuant to a Kuwaiti court order.
50 I agree there are some factual similarities in this case, but the number of forged documents in that case and the lengthy period of the offending over many months, it would appear, or some months at least, distinguish it from the present. The offender in that case appears to have used many forged documents to create numerous false identities and to obtain multiple forged passports through multiple applications, including the submitting of false affidavits.
51 The court in that case also noted the significant aggravating factor that the offender had misled the court in important respects. In that case, the intention to abduct children seems clear. In the case at bar, the issue is instead of the risk that there could have been an abducted child.
52 The cases I find most useful of those cited by the Crown are: Ping, where a six‑month jail sentence was imposed for obtaining passports for the offender’s family and himself, I assume, using false identification documents; Franklin, where a four‑month jail sentence was imposed for obtaining a passport under a false name, although I note there was a guilty plea involved there; Fawaz, where a 10‑month sentence was imposed for using a false passport several times; and Allen, where a six‑month conditional sentence was imposed where the offender used a false passport to make multiple trips to the United States. I note that Allen also involved a guilty plea on the part of the offender. The range reflected in those cases is four to 10 months, with a conditional sentence imposed on one occasion involving a guilty plea.
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Justice Blok found:
[57] As for Ms. Kapoor specifically, I note that she is unremorseful, which is not an aggravating factor, I hasten to add, but this, together with her other attributes, leads me to conclude that she is unlikely to comply with the conditions of a CSO. The fact that she was non‑compliant, defiant, and at times essentially ungovernable during the trial reinforces this view.
58 I add that she seems to have no insight into her criminal behaviour and she does not acknowledge what she has done or the harm she has done, and instead she blames others, particularly Mr. Makkar. She claims to have acted out of motherly love and that there was no risk of child abduction, but she has failed to recognize that her conduct reasonably gave rise to those very fears.
59 In these circumstances, I conclude that only actual jail time would meet the sentencing objective of specific deterrence.
60 I have given careful thought to the length of sentence and I have given particular consideration to possible collateral immigration effects. Ms. Kapoor may already have done irreparable damage to her future immigration status, but I am satisfied I can impose a sentence that meets all sentencing objectives here without creating potential immigration consequences.
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