A man who was arrested after an informal patrol by a group of Fort Langley dads just before Christmas has been sentenced to 90 days in jail, and banned from being anywhere near that community.
Matthew Ostrander, 38, was arrested in the early morning hours of Dec. 24, shortly after being spotted exiting a business in the village’s downtown.
He was spotted and recorded by some local men, who had organized an impromptu “dads stroll” after a string of thefts and break ins around the area over the previous month.
Ostrander, who has a lengthy record of crimes ranging from break ins and petty thefts to assault with a weapon, was in court on Jan. 22, and was convicted of break and enter.
He was given a 90-day jail sentence and two years of probation, said Cpl. Zynal Sharoom, a spokesperson for the Langley RCMP.
One of the conditions of his probation is that he is banned from being within a two-kilometre radius of Fort Langley.
“The residents of Fort Langley community played a key role in the advancement of this investigation in a timely manner,” said Sharoom. He reminded everyone to call the RCMP if they see suspicious activity.
Ostrander’s criminal history includes encounters with the police and courts on Vancouver Island and in several Lower Mainland communities.
In 2015, he was in Fort Langley, where police began looking for him after a June 4 break in. Ostrander was dubbed a local “bush man,” believed to be living in the woods near the Houston Trail.
He was arrested by the Emergency Response Team after he was found sleeping in a home under construction. For a number of offences linked to his time in and around Fort Langley, he was sentenced to 28 months in federal prison.
He was back out of prison in 2017, when he was arrested and convicted of an assault in Coquitlam that landed him back in prison for four more months.
Ostrander also has a history of not turning up for court hearings, and was wanted on bench warrants for months before he was arrested on Dec. 24.
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