Super-prolific offender hit with 18 criminal charges, some connected to $500,000 in stolen property from Abbotsford's Sumas Prairie

Unrepentant vehicle thief Cody Richard Ashton released on bail in December despite facing 71 charges on 34 files over last seven years

He may not be Abbotsford’s most prolific offender but Cody Richard Ashton is indeed super-prolific and has to be up there as one of the worst. 

Despite the fact that the 34-year-old Ashton has faced 71 different charges under the criminal code and the motor vehicle act over the last seven years, he was released on $600 cash bail with no surety on Dec. 15, 2025. 

(See below for an explainer on rules surrounding bail.)

During the first five months of 2025, the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) recorded a troubling trend on the Sumas Prairie: a 67 per cent increase in property crime-related offences. 

On June 4, 2025, APD executed search warrants at properties in Abbotsford and Mission, the start of a focused effort to crack down over the following months, according to an APD news release issued Thursday (Jan. 8, 2026). 

Over the following months, members of CRU “followed the evidence wherever it led,” with help from funding provided by the Provincial Special Investigation and Targeted Enforcement (SITE) Program. 

In November 2025, 12 charges were approved against Ashton, including break and enter, assault with a weapon, possession of stolen property, motor vehicle theft, theft over $5,000, and mischief.

His co-accused on one file with 16 charges are 30-year-old Kayla Briggitta Hellstrom (facing three charges) and 42-year-old Justin William Graham (facing seven). Ashton faces nine charges on that file all of which are from five days in April and May 2025.

He wasn’t done with 2025, however. On a separate file, Ashton is charged with flight from police, possession of break-in instruments, and two counts of driving while prohibited from an alleged incident on Aug. 30, 2025.

He was also already before the courts on a third file from Dec. 20, 2024, that one includes two counts of possession/use of stolen credit cards, unauthorized use of credit card data, and two more counts of driving while prohibited.

In the APD release issued Thursday, Ashton is referred to as a “prolific offender,” but this sells him short as he is actually a super-prolific offender, according to the the yardstick used by criminologists.

University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) professor Irwin Cohen said in a previous interview that people such as Ashton are an example of the 80/20 rule, whereby something like 20 per cent of offenders cause 80 per cent of crime. 

In previous studies, Cohen and others addressed super-prolific offenders defined as those with 30 or more prior convictions.

“They are their own crime wave,” Cohen told Something Worth Reading in an interview in 2025.

$500,000 in stolen property

On May 20, 2025, with support from the APD Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU), the Lower Mainland District Emergency Response Team (LMD IERT), and the LMD Integrated Police Dog Services (IPDS), a search warrant was executed at a property in the 39900-block of Campbell Road in Abbotsford. A second search warrant was executed on May 23, 2025, at a property in the 8700-block of Miles Road in Mission.

APD reported in June 2025 that those searches resulted in the recovery of a significant amount of stolen property, including:

three vehicles, five ATVs/UTVs, two motorcycles, one travel trailer, one tractor, and one skid steer.

The estimated total value of the recovered stolen property was approximately $500,000. 

“AbbyPD remains committed to holding those involved in property crime accountable,” according to the Jan. 8, 2026 release. “We continue to deploy both overt and covert strategies in the Sumas Prairie area to ensure community safety and disrupt criminal activity. This approach is being supported by our Patrol Officers, and AbbyPD’s Street Outreach Response Team (SORT).

“AbbyPD encourages residents in the Sumas Prairie area to continue reporting any suspicious activity to police. Community members are also reminded that they can stay informed about crime trends in their neighbourhoods by viewing current crime statistics online at www.abbypd.ca/crime-mapping.”

Why would he be out on bail?

When a judge decides on whether an accused person should be released on bail in Canada, they consider three grounds under section 515(10) of the Criminal Code:

• Primary grounds: To ensure the accused will attend court.
• Secondary grounds: To protect public safety and prevent further offences or interference with justice.
• Tertiary grounds: To maintain public confidence in the justice system, considering the seriousness of the offence, strength of the evidence, and potential sentence.

More simply put, will they show up? Will they stay out of trouble? Will release undermine public trust in the system?

Under the criminal code section 515(2)-(3), judges are required to follow the “ladder principle,” starting at the least restrictive release (unconditional undertaking) only stepping up the ladder when justified. 

Basically, the default position is supposed to be unconditional release on the least onerous form appropriate.

However, because of the step-up principle and Ashton’s near perpetual criminal activity and breaches, some might find it hard to understand how he could or should not have been detained on both secondary AND tertiary grounds.

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Paul J. Henderson
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