Prolific offenders: A perplexing commitment to a life of crime
An unenviable, ongoing engagement with the criminal justice system is all too common
Born in 2000, Westin Levi Ferguson is the kind of offender local RCMP officers can call by name when they see him on the street.
The 24-year-old kid is currently in custody at the Surrey Pretrial Centre facing charges on three different files for robbery, assault, weapons possession and vehicle theft from three different communities: Hope, Salmon Arm and Nanaimo.
For someone born in the 21st century, having 18 results pop up on Court Services Online under his name is impressive. Not in a good way.
Ferguson's earliest file is an unsurprising failure to comply with a sentence or disposition from Feb. 15, 2018 when he had just turned 18, referencing a case from when he was a young offender. (The files for criminal cases of those under 18 are not available to search, so without digging deep, it’s hard to know how just when his criminal activity started.)
What is clear is that since he became an adult seven years ago, it’s been non-stop. And these are just what he’s been caught doing and charged with.
Ferguson was in court Tuesday (Jan. 21, 2025) via video link to confirm a trial date for robbery, assault with a weapon, and two breaches of his release from an alleged incident on Nov. 3, 2024 in Hope. That was pushed over to Jan. 27.
His two other files:
• March 22, 2024 in Nanaimo: Possession of stolen property over $5,000; theft of motor vehicle; unauthorized possession of a firearm; and dealing with an identity document without lawful excuse; and
• Dec. 16, 2023 in White Lake (in Salmon Arm court); Possession of stolen property over $5,000.
Ferguson has a co-accused on the Nanaimo file with the ironic name Justice McKay-Saul. His criminal history often involves a pal. In 2018 he was convicted of taking a vehicle without consent and theft of $5,000 and under with Travis Trainor and Kao MacAulay, the latter of which was once named in the top 10 car thieves in B.C.
MacAulay is an even worse prolific offender than Ferguson, if it’s a competition. In addition to his proclivity for stealing cars, he was convicted of stealing 10-day-old kittens from an Abbotsford home in 2021, and he was once involved in a four-hour police standoff.
A search of his name has 52 entries on Court Service Online (CSO), only one that is not resolved. The 26-year-old remains in custody due on Jan. 27 to fix a date for sentencing for his conviction of aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, and uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm and for an incident in Abbotsford on April 14, 2024.
As for Trainor, he takes the cake. Older by more than a decade, his name brings up 54 listings on CSO although none since 2022, which likely is only because he’s incarcerated, out of province, or maybe even deceased.
Ferguson was first in the news in 2019 for going on a theft rampage in Agassiz. The Agassiz RCMP received a dozen reports of break and enters, mostly in the Morrow Road area, over a few days in January 2019.
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Paul J. Henderson
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