A screenshot from the footage captured on home security video of the incident which was posted to Facebook.

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

A provincial court judge banished a woman from Osoyoos after she serves two years in jail at a federal institution for a home invasion he described as “straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock horror movie.”

Sharon Constance Forner, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of breaking and entering to commit an indictable offence (assault) in provincial court in Penticton on April 12 and was sentenced Aug. 16.

Forner was also sentenced to three years of strict probation which orders her not to be in a 50-kilometre radius of the Town of Osoyoos.

Forner attempted to enter the home on 78 Avenue in Osoyoos on Aug. 8, 2018, wearing a wig and yellow gloves, in the strange incident which was caught on home surveillance video.

Forner initially asked the homeowner if she could see her newborn baby, then after being asked to leave and having the door shut in her face, Forner re-entered the home brandishing a large kitchen knife over her head before being fought off by the victim — the mother of a newborn at home alone with her four-year-old child present as well.

“Most are left wondering and concerned how something like this, something straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock horror movie, could happen in a small town in our valley,” Judge Greg Koturbash said while handing down his sentence Friday.

• Read more: Suprise Guilty Plea to Home Invasion in Osoyoos

There was no provable underlying mental illness which would explain the incident, according to psychological reports conducted while Forner was in custody. She was diagnosed with severe alcohol abuse disorder and depression, which the reports concluded was not the underlying cause for the offence.

“Essentially (the experts) say, and I agree, that people don’t do what Ms. Forner did because they are drunk. I accept there may have been some type of mental health issue at play that was exacerbated by the consumption of alcohol and prescription medication,” Koturbash said. “The troubling part is that we don’t know specifically what that or those issues were, nor can we say they have been addressed through treatment.”

Forner attempted treatment for her alcohol addiction, but was unable to comply with the program and was discharged. She also attempted suicide while in custody in 2018. Forner has prior convictions for stealing alcohol and impaired driving, including a “serious” impaired driving incident, Koturbash said.

Forner had trouble with admitting culpability according to the psychological report, which Koturbash quoted in his sentencing decision.

“I am not the victim in all of this. It’s sickening. My sentence does not begin until I walk out the doors and into the community. I want (the victim) to know how sorry I am, and how bad I feel for her. I’m so grateful no one got hurt,” Forner said in the psychological report.

While conditions banning a person from a township are rare, Koturbash noted, the victim and the victim’s children’s safety “outweigh Ms. Forner’s need to remain in Osoyoos.”

“The town is simply too small,” Koturbash said, noting that Forner lived within 100 metres of the victim’s home. The banishment is attached to Forner’s probation order, with the maximum length of three years.

• Read more: RCMP arrest suspicious woman who entered home in Osoyoos

Court heard during sentencing that Forner’s brother, who had been supportive and attended some court appearances, died this week, and Koturbash expressed his condolences. Forner was emotional when her brother was brought up, and upon hearing her sentence, while appearing via video from the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge.

Forner spent 330 days in custody prior to sentencing (equal to 495 days with pre-trial custody credit) and will spend an additional two years in a federal institution, followed by a three-year probation order with conditions not to be in Osoyoos, a curfew and orders not to be in the presence of children under the age of 14, not to possess a knife or a mask, not to be in possession of alcohol and to not have contact with the victim or her family.