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By Bob Mackin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince George Citizen

Court Ruling

No further jail time for man who caused $14,000 damage to Prince George Regional Correctional Centre

Dec 7, 2025 | 4:19 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — A 27-year-old man who caused almost $14,000 in damage to the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre was sentenced Nov. 24 to time served in Provincial Court.

Smitty Ralph Bent pleaded guilty to mischief over $5,000, resisting a peace officer and breaching probation conditions.

Judge David Simpkin agreed to the joint Crown and defence proposal for a 285-day sentence. Since Bent had spent 194 days in custody, he qualified for a time-and-a-half credit of 291 days.

The most-serious offence accounted for 150 days of the sentence. On Aug. 7, 2024, the day he was scheduled to be moved from a regular unit to segregation, Bent lit a fire with a rice cooker in a sink. Despite thick smoke, he refused to leave and threatened violence.

A correctional officer put a fire extinguisher through a hatch in the cell to put out the blaze. Bent also broke a faucet from the unit’s kitchen and used it to damage sprinkler heads, cameras, the unit phone, lights and the staff station window.

Court Ruling

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The emergency response team was deployed and eventually incapacitated Bent with pepper spray. He was handcuffed, placed in leg irons and moved to the segregation unit.

The cost of the damage was $13,911.53.

Simpkin called it “self-destructive behaviour that occurred during the fit of depression.”

“Mr. Bent, you caused a lot of damage there to that government facility which the rest of us have to pay taxes to maintain,” Simpkin said. “Almost $14,000, that’s a lot of damage you caused there.”

The sentencing proposal did not include restitution because it is unlikely Bent would pay for the damage.

Bent resisted a peace officer on March 2, 2025, after Prince George RCMP was called to Freeman Street and Eighth Avenue to investigate a suspicious person report. An officer found Bent and told him he was under arrest, but Bent fled and jumped a fence.

Eventually cornered in a driveway, Bent dropped to the ground, pulled out a container and ingested a substance that appeared to be fentanyl. An officer deployed a Taser and Bent was handcuffed.

Bent also pleaded guilty to breaching his curfew conditions on July 23, 2024, in Penticton. A police officer found him on a front porch after a resident complained that someone was banging on a door at 4:21 a.m.

Court heard that Bent’s adult criminal record began in 2016. He has three prior convictions for assault-type offences and three prior convictions for obstructing or resisting a peace officer.

The member of the Takla First Nation will face no further jail time but remains under probation until the end of February 2027 as a result of a July 2024 court order. The order includes provision for counselling.

“You’re still a young man, Mr. Bent, but you have, frankly, a quite terrible criminal record,” Simpkin said. “But there’s lots of mitigation here, including your personal circumstances.”