Picton Inquiry - Funding Denied for Legal Representation

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Jody Paterson writes for the Times Colonist, 3 Jun 2011:

 

http://www.timescolonist.com/life/Jody+Paterson+Voices+workers+silenced+again/4886456/story.html

 

Voices of Sex Workers are Silenced Again

 

So we've got an inquiry into a B.C. mass murder headed up by a man tainted by his political connections, presiding over a process that shuts out almost everyone on the side of the victims.

 

Yup, that sounds like a solid way to get at the truth about the Robert Pickton case.

 

Only sex workers could draw straws this short. Then again, only sex workers would be left to go missing and murdered on our streets for so long in the first place. It's baffling and heartbreaking, this misery we sustain in the name of "morality."

 

Should we be surprised, then, that the B.C. government has refused to cover legal costs for groups representing the interests of sex workers at the upcoming Robert Pickton inquiry?

 

It's a more blatant rejection than I'd have expected from a new premier, sure.

 

But isolated howls of protest aside, the government likely knows it's politically safe to stick it to groups acting in the interests of sex workers.

 

More than a decade of dead and missing women in the Downtown Eastside wasn't enough to get British Columbians riled enough to change one damn thing for sex workers. Why would they rise up now over a lack of money for legal representation?

 

The government's denial of support is reprehensible, but you can't argue with its political instincts. It's got the public's number on this one.

 

Lawyers collected $21 million after Pickton's trial. RCMP rang up $84 million on the investigation. We'll spend many millions more to revisit all of that during the inquiry that former attorney general Wally Oppal will be presiding over.

 

How far might money like that have gone if used instead to improve the lives of the troubled women Pickton preyed on? It turns my stomach to think of all the desperate women and their children who came looking for help in my three years at PEERS Victoria, and how little was available.

 

I was in the last year of that nonprofit job when Pickton went on trial. As I've noted in past rants on this subject, media called me from across the country that spring and summer to ask what I thought would change for outdoor sex workers now that "justice" was being done.

 

What can possibly change when the only time a sex worker gets any consideration is as a dead body?

 

Women were going missing for a long, long time from the Downtown Eastside before Pickton was ever brought to trial. If British Columbians had wanted to do right by outdoor sex workers, we would have taken preventive steps well before Pickton was even a suspect, and certainly in the years following his conviction. But we didn't.

 

I hope Pickton's victims are out there right now in some version of an afterlife, having a good, rueful laugh about all of this.

 

They were universally shafted in life, that's for sure. But I think they'd see the black humour in the small fortune we've lavished on them in death.

Do the math on the $102 million in legal and police costs for the Pickton proceedings and it turns out we've spent almost $4 million for each of the 26 women Pickton was charged with killing.

 

All that for women we didn't have the time of day for back when they were alive.

Women who struggled to find housing, support, addiction treatment or even an ounce of public sympathy when they were still walking the stroll.

 

And the kicker: None of that money altered one thing for the future victims of a future Pickton. It didn't change the law, or make a bit of difference in the lives of the vulnerable, impoverished women still working the grim outdoor strolls in our communities.

 

Families of Pickton's victims understandably want an inquiry. And they'll have it starting in September, albeit under the direction of a man who presided with indifference over the plight of outdoor sex workers in the years when he was attorney general.

 

The families will be able to share a lawyer at the government's expense during the inquiry. At least that ensures the voices of the dead are represented.

 

But the denial of legal aid to the sex workers' coalitions and community advocacy groups silences the voices of the living. Those groups have now withdrawn from the inquiry in protest. Once again, only the dead will be heard.

 

All that's left to feel is shame.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

James Keller reports for The Canadian Press, 12 Aug 2011:

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/127604188.html

 

Sex workers need identities protected at Pickton inquiry, lawyer says

 

VANCOUVER - Current and former sex workers should have their identities protected if they testify at the public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case, says one of the independent lawyers appointed to represent the views of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and aboriginal women at the hearings.

 

Jason Gratl, one of two lawyers appointed earlier this week after about a dozen non-profit advocacy groups were denied legal funding, plans to file an application next week asking the inquiry to establish protocols for vulnerable witnesses.

 

"So that they can feel comfortable speaking with us and providing evidence to the commission perhaps under conditions of anonymity, perhaps with publication bans, perhaps affording them some limited protection against aggressive cross-examination," Gratl, former president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said in an interview Friday.

 

"They may be current or former sex workers or users of illicit drugs. These would be people who wish to protect their reputations. They may be concerned about retaliation from institutional sources or from predators on the street. And they may be concerned about aggressive cross-examination from counsel for the police."

 

Gratl was appointed to represent the views of Downtown Eastside residents, while Robyn Gervais, who has previously represented the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, will present the interests of aboriginal women.

 

The appointments were an attempt to allay concerns that a list of non-profit groups were denied legal funding. Gratl and Gervais won't specifically represent any of those groups, but will ask them for guidance.

 

The groups were granted participant status at the hearings and commissioner Wally Oppal recommended they receive funding, but the province refused.

 

A growing number have either formally pulled out of the inquiry because of the funding decision or have said they can't afford to send lawyers to make submissions and question witnesses. Several have already rejected the idea of working with the independent lawyers.

 

Gratl admits it's still not ideal to have two lawyers represent the interests of such a diverse and wide-ranging community, but he hopes there is enough common ground to make it work.

 

"I know there have been reservations expressed by participant groups in the past, but I'm currently reaching out to those groups to try to see what I can offer them by way of cross-examination or presentation of their perspectives," said Gratl.

 

"Everyone agrees that the police and police institutions ought to do more to protect people in the Downtown Eastside and aboriginal women from predators like Robert Pickton instead of dismissing reports that women have gone missing."

 

Gratl said he's sent a letter to the groups outlining his plans and has started setting up meetings for next week.

 

He also plans to file an application giving the unfunded groups access to a trove of police documents that are already in the hands of the inquiry.

 

Kate Gibson, executive director of the WISH drop-in centre for sex workers, said it's too early to say how her organization will be involved with Gratl and Gervais. She said the funding decision means her group can't afford to send its own lawyer, though WISH hasn't yet decided whether to formally withdraw.

 

Gibson said the pair of independent lawyers have a difficult job ahead of them.

 

"It's two counsel who are somehow charged with what looks like an impossible task of bringing forward concerns, issues, reports, testimony from people from a very large community that has been severely affected by the missing and murdered women and violence against women," Gibson said in an interview.

 

At the very least, Gibson said WISH will have representatives in the room watching the hearings when they begin in October.

 

"We aren't able to participate formally because we aren't able to afford legal representation, but we are still trying to determine how to participate in a way that would support women or enable women to come forward or to bring information to light that should be examined or heard," said Gibson.

 

Oppal, a former judge and one-time attorney general, was asked to examine why Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to stop Pickton as he murdered sex workers from the Downtown Eastside until he was arrested in 2002.

 

Oppal will also hold a less-formal study commission that will look at broader issues surrounding missing and murdered women, including cases along the so-called Highway of Tears in northern B.C.

 

Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder, but the remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm in Port Coquitlam, and he bragged to police that he killed 49.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Daphne Bramham reports for the Vancouver Sun, 1 Sep 2011:

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Oppal+commission+needs+despite+lurching+from+crisis+crisis/5338687/story.html

 

Oppal commission needs to go on, despite lurching from crisis to crisis

 

It's hard to think of a more volatile mix of issues than those that the provincial inquiry into missing women, a.k.a. the Pickton commission, will address.

 

Murders. Prostitution. Policing. Taken together, they're proving to be an almost toxic brew.

 

Set up nearly a year ago, the commission has lurched from crisis to crisis. Initially expected to begin hearings early this year, Commissioner Wally Oppal is now scheduled to begin formal hearings on Oct. 11.

 

(Next week, he'll hold a series of public consultations in northern B.C. even though the women who have gone missing along the Highway of Tears are not part of his mandate and even though at least one native chief has said the commission is not welcome there.)

 

Nothing about the inquiry has gone smoothly. Its terms of reference were initially deemed too narrow. But now they have been broadened, the inquiry appears destined to spiral out of control.

 

Many first nations leaders and women's groups opposed Oppal's appointment because, as attorney-general, he had suggested that no inquiry was necessary.

 

They were partly mollified when they received Oppal's blessing to be full participants. But when the government refused to pay their legal bills, half withdrew in protest and have been disappointed that Oppal did not resign as well.

 

Instead, Oppal wrote a strongly worded open letter urging the government to reconsider and he lobbied then attorney-general Barry Penner and at least one other cabinet minister.

 

A few weeks ago, the government grudgingly provided enough money to hire two independent lawyers charged with representing the wildly diverse views of women (especially aboriginal women who are overrepresented in the sex trade and as Robert (Willie) Pickton's victims) and the so-called Downtown Eastside community.

 

Oppal's lobbying included leaving a voicemail message for Penner, which prompted Penner to raise concerns with his deputy that Oppal is biased. To parry those concerns, Oppal made a transcript of the message public, possibly in an effort to avoid police or even government lawyers trying to force him to recuse himself from the inquiry.

 

Oppal was clearly intemperate by saying in his message that police had "given the back of their hands" and "disregarded" the dozens of missing women.

 

But both the RCMP and Vancouver police have conducted internal investigations and acknowledged that they made mistakes in their investigations, although they disagree on what those were. VPD has even made an official apology.

 

It's also worth noting that Oppal knows a lot about policing problems. In the early 1990s, he led a provincial policing commission that identified many of the problems that later dogged the Pickton investigation.

 

Its 317 recommendations included greater integration and better information sharing among police forces, and that consideration be given to a regional police force that would replace both RCMP and municipal police. Regional policing remains a contentious and unresolved proposition.

 

In his June letter about funding, Oppal was also unwise - but possibly right - to say that had the attorney-general's criminal justice branch laid police-recommended charges against Pickton in the late 1990s, the mass murderer might have been in prison rather than prowling the streets, searching for more victims.

 

The commission is now poised to begin hearings to determine who made the decision not to charge him and why, possibly killing a few careers and reputations.

 

Safe to say, Oppal has powerful enemies at every turn.

 

Many question the commission's ability and suitability to deal with prostitution without confronting the highly controversial question of legalization.

 

The appointments of Robyn Gervais and Jason Gratl as the independent counsel for the Downtown Eastside and aboriginal women are also not without controversy. Gervais previously represented the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, which pulled out of the inquiry because it couldn't afford to participate.

 

Gratl represented the B.C. Civil Liberties Association in a failed attempt in B.C. Supreme Court to have Canada's prostitution laws struck down, and has publicly urged B.C. to create workplace and employment standards for prostitutes. All of which is anathema to many women's groups.

 

But Gratl said in an interview he hopes to gain a consensus from Downtown Eastside residents concerning immunity from prosecution of other offences for prostitutes reporting a violent crime, as a way to eliminate one barrier to reporting assaults and rapes. Immunity would extend to property crimes, drug-related offences and outstanding warrants.

 

The commission is also bound to be challenged on whether it calls the right experts to testify about prostitution, its incumbent harms and its solutions. Because, as was evident when an Ontario lower court decision struck down sections of Canada's prostitution law, one person's expert is another's advocate.

 

All of this leaves Oppal wounded before he's even begun. But time is on his side. It's now too late for the government to shut down the commission, giving Oppal an opportunity to make something meaningful out of this mess.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Editorial opinion in the Victoria Times-Colonist, 23 Sept 2011:

 

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/Missing+women+inquiry+sham/5447326/story.html?cid=megadrop_story

 

Missing-women inquiry a sham

 

It's hard to get to the bottom of any problem - let alone make changes to ensure it doesn't happen again - without the needed resources.

 

Oppal's inquiry into the Robert Pickton I Wally case, and the disappearance of 33 women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, lacks those resources. Its credibility and effectiveness are both in doubt. With its formal work due to start Oct. 11, it is time to ask whether it is even worth continuing with the inquiry.

 

Oppal's assignment is to look at the reasons 33 women - marginalized, dealing with poverty, addiction or prostitution - could go missing in a five-year period without police recognition that a serial killer might be on the loose, why attempted murder charges were stayed against Pickton in 1998 and why he could kill with impunity for years.

 

The inquiry was announced on Sept. 9, 2010, more than two years after Pickton was convicted of six murders.

 

Families of the missing women and advocacy groups were pleased that questions would finally be answered.

 

Its credibility was dealt a serious blow three weeks later, when the provincial government appointed Oppal, a former judge and former attorney general, to lead it.

 

Oppal had been in the provincial cabinet until the 2009 election. He had downplayed the need for an inquiry, and his appointment raised immediate fears that this would not be a truly independent inquiry.

 

The inquiry's mandate also limited potential recommendations around regional policing and the role of government policy toward the addicted and impoverished in the crimes.

 

The inquiry was dealt another hugely damaging blow in May. Oppal had approved legal standing and representation for the victims' families and 13 groups dealing with sex trade workers, Downtown Eastside residents and aboriginal people, among others. Their participation was needed to make the inquiry effective, he said, and legal representation was required to allow them to participate.

 

The provincial government said no. The families could have one lawyer. The groups would not have legal representation, despite Oppal's protests.

 

The police will have taxpayer-funded lawyers. So will prosecutors and politicians and government employees.

 

But not those speaking for the victims and the communities from which they came. Already, about half the groups have announced that they will not take part; more may follow. Oppal has attempted to provide some representation within his budget, but the inquiry is now further tainted, with the interests of the powerful clearly coming ahead of those of the powerless.

 

The process so far, combined with the foot-dragging leading up to the inquiry, suggests the government has no real interest in learning from these deaths, or acting to prevent similar killing sprees in future.

 

Consider another government's response to another high-profile serial criminal, Paul Bernardo. Between May 1987 and December 1992, he sexually assaulted 18 women and killed three more in southern Ontario.

 

Bernardo was convicted in September 1995. That December, the Ontario government ordered a review and appointed Judge Archie Campbell to conduct it. He completed his work within seven months and the report was released in July 1996. The Ontario government announced immediately that it would act on his recommendations.

 

Campbell's report was damning, and identified issues - like fractured policing - that later allowed Pickton to kill without detection. He cited several cross-jurisdictional cases - including serial killer Clifford Olson - and said the lack of communication and co-operation between law enforcement agencies was a factor in all of them.

 

Pickton's victims were ignored, marginalized and abused in life. The government's shoddy handling of the reluctantly called inquiry continues that abuse. If the government refuses to fund the inquiry adequately, it is unlikely to act on any recommendations.

 

It's time to consider abandoning the inquiry. It has become a symbol of the grim reality that the government simply does not care about these victims, or the women who are at risk of a similar fate.

[JuliasUndies 7288]

I have not read any of this article. The name Picton turns my stomach as if to throw up. Can we please not post anything relating to this horrible man that does not deserve to have his name here. We all know the story and it is so damn sickening! Please Please can we avoid this piece of shit from now on? Many Thanks

[JuliasUndies 7288]

So, was that a yes? Can we leave out this name from now on?

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

I believe the Inquiry is relevant. That's why I'm posting about it. It's about law enforcement's handling of the Pickton case, that's why the name Pickton appears.

[JuliasUndies 7288]

Mr WrinkledInTime,

Everything you post has relevance, you my fellow Cerbite are a Legend and your motives and post need never to be questioned.

I'm a dreamer, a space cadet that has a dream that one day all evil names like this can be blocked out like poisonous narcodics are here on Cerb, so when we make our forum rounds, we need not be reminded of such evil that hits so close to home.

Just so sad

[Guest tr*****e]

I believe the Inquiry is relevant. That's why I'm posting about it. It's about law enforcement's handling of the Pickton case, that's why the name Pickton appears.

 

I, for one, don't know all the details of why this... person... was allowed to continue as he did for so long. While I am similarly repulsed by his actions, Julia, it is important to know the modus operandi of our enemy. The enemies of my friends are also my enemies, but I am not an SP. It therefore follows that persons in my position do not have access to the networks of information/advice that an SP does. Is it enough to simply hate the crime? Yes. But I was unaware of the witness to these heinous crimes heretofore. Therefore, the presentation of new information educates me concerning the trustworthiness of people in a general sense. Also, we are constantly bombarded with the message that prostitutes, et al. are either a menace to society's functionality, or a class of people who deserve passing mention as comic relief, much like homosexuals are treated many times. Or transsexuals, for that matter.

 

The point I'm making is this: it's right that we be repulsed by this... person's... acts, but this situation is similar to taking the more responsible, but harder to accept, choice, when you're presented with such a situation. As an example, I present the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. A horrifying concept, to be sure, and indicative of the overall unglossed tribal nature of the times. It did work though, and there never was an open World War III. The other choice was surrender, for one side or another. That was clearly unacceptable, so a horrible choice was made; to threaten 'the other guys' with utter annihilation, until everyone could just calm down enough to talk. The same holds true for this real-life circumstance. Killers will continue to kill, but all of us who are not killers will learn to hate the actions of a killer, through the constant reminder of the pain and consequences brought on by such(shudder) deeds.

 

I wish these things would just go away, but they aren't, so I will gaze upon the record of the horror these... people... have committed, and learn to disapprove of, and if possible, take part in the prevention of, such courses of action. Like World War II. Like Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, and the other atrocities committed then.

 

I'm sorry to have gone on so long, but I feel rather... eloquent at the moment.

 

May these actions of William Picton be forever remembered as a horrible wound to humanity, and let us grow from the purging of such malignancy. I hope someday he regrets what he did, and changes for his betterment.

[scribbles 6031]

I completely understand the emotion behind what Julia is asking, even as I disagree with what's being asked. It's sickening to think of the extreme evil people are capable of, but it's also important to remember that we are. People like Pickton are an anomalous shoot that grows in our culture, like a cancer. And, like cancer, we learn to protect ourselves and defeat it by understanding it and the circumstances in which it grows.

 

Names only have the power we give to them. I'm not big on giving names so much power that merely uttering them is discouraged. Name the bastard. Name him and speak of the sick, depraved and hideous things he did. It's not reverence, it's not a celebration of his actions, and it's not glorifying his history. Having the courage to look past the gruesomeness of his deeds to the why, how and what went wrong robs him of the horror and shock he intended to cause. It makes him a specimen on a glass.

 

I'm repulsed by Pickton even as I'm sure he won't be the last of his kind. And, I'm sickened by the ineptitude and willful ignorance displayed by those who should have stopped him. Let *that* come to light and reach as public an audience as possible; maybe through shame the public can learn to have more humanity towards sex workers, as unprepared as I am to trust that they will.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Neal Hall reports for the Vancouver Sun, 11 Oct 2011:

 

Full article: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Police+blasted+Missing+Women+inquiry+failures+catch+killer+sooner/5533133/story.html

 

The lawyer for the families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton blasted police Tuesday for their failures to catch the killer sooner.

 

Cameron Ward, in his opening address to the Missing Woman commission of inquiry, suggested the Vancouver police gave families the "brush off" when they tried to reported their loved ones missing.

 

He said the VPD, and later the RCMP, treated the missing women case with indifference and incompetence by failing to assign enough resources.

 

That was because the missing women were poverty stricken, poorly educated and largely were drug-addicted sex trade workers, with a large proportion being first nations women, Ward said.

 

Police "couldn't have cared less what happened to these women," Ward told the inquiry.

 

"The pervasive problem was the Vancouver police department and the RCMP simply had a bad attitude," the lawyer....

 

The inquiry is supposed to complete its work by Dec. 31 of this year, but the commissioner likely will ask the provincial government for an extension until sometime next year.

 

Almost four years after Pickton was convicted of killing six women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastide, the Missing Woman inquiry began today with a protest.

 

A circle of women on the street at Georgia and Granville beat on first nations drums and sang songs.

 

The protest, involving about two dozen people, took over the intersection at Georgia and Granville streets, shutting down traffic, before it broke up shortly past noon.

 

One person held a sign saying, "Justice denied."

 

The protest was over what is being called a "sham" inquiry after 16 groups granted standing dropped out because the provincial government refused to grant funding for legal counsel.

 

Another coalition of sex trade workers announced today it was dropping out of the inquiry.

 

The coaltion includes the WISH Drop-in Centre Society, PACE (Providing Alternatives, Counselling & Education) Society, and SWUAV (Sex Workers United Against Violence) Society.

 

The Assembly of First Nations also withdrew from the inquiry today, bringing the total to 16 groups who have pulled out to protest the lack of government legal funding for participating groups.

 

Rick Frey, the father of Marnie Frey, whose daughter was killed by Pickton, said he was sad to see so many groups withdraw.

 

"The way it is now, the families are the only ones in there being represented, he said.

 

Frey said the police and government has 19 lawyers.

 

"That's not a level playing field," he said.

 

Frey said he and other families want the truth to come out about what went wrong with the police investigations.

 

He also wants to hear if Pickton had accomplices. Frey believes Pickton did not act alone..

 

The inquiry began with a prayers from a first nations elder, who fanned Commissioner Wally Oppal and almost two dozen lawyer with a eagle feathers.

 

"You're going to set our sisters free, our aunties, our loved ones," the elder said.

 

"Set our families free," he added.

 

Lawyers held their hands out, palms up, to receive the blessing.

 

The packed inquiry includes families of Pickton's victims.

 

"The missing and murdered women are at the heart of this inquiry," Oppal said.

 

He said the women were all loved and now are missed.

 

"This is the first inquiry of its kind to seek answers," the commissioner said.

 

This inquiry is important to make changes to how investigations are conducted.

 

The inquiry aims to probe why it took police so long to catch Pickton ....

 

Oppal's mandate includes probing the mistakes made by police and finding fault, if necessary ...

 

Art Vertlieb, in his opening outline of the evidence to be heard at the inquiry, said there will be allegations that a civilian clerk with the Vancouver police missing persons unit was dismissive of reports of missing women working in the sex trade and failed to treat first nations women with compassion and respect.

 

The inquiry will also hear how the missing person unit took a long time identifying the problem of long-term missing women.

 

Vancouver police received two tips about Pickton in 1998 ....

 

The lawyer told Oppal the inquiry will have to answer these questions:

 

Why was foul play dismissed and why did police not warn the public, particularly the women of the Downtown Eastside?

 

Between February and August 1999, more informants told police that a woman named Lynn Ellingsen said she had witnessed Pickton ...

 

Pickton was interviewed by police at one point but police failed to take him up on his offer for police to search his farm property, Vertlieb said.

 

He said at the time, Vancouver police thought the disappearances of women were historical and were not ongoing.

 

That belief changed after the formation of the joint forces Missing Women task force, which realized women were continuing to go missing, he added.

 

Eight more women would be killed by Pickton before he was caught, Vertlieb said.

 

The inquiry is going to hear much about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods.

 

It is an area plagued by violence, drug addiction, mental health problems and homelessness.

 

Most of Pickton's victims were vulnerable because they were addicted to drugs and alcohol and involved in the sex trade ...

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Neal Hall reports for Postmedia News, 12 Oct 2011:

 

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Pickton+inquiry+pattern+racism+cited/5542986/story.html

 

pattern of racism cited

 

There has been a pattern of systemic discrimination against First Nations people across Canada for decades, a prominent native leader told the inquiry established to determine why it took so long to catch one of the country's most notorious serial killers.

 

While there has been progress made in recent years, there are still shocking and outrageous police incidents involving aboriginal people, First Nations Summit Grand Chief Ed John testified at the Vancouver inquiry into the Robert Pickton murders...

 

He said this is part of the systemic discrimination that resulted in the residential school system, which took native children out of their homes in order to "kill the Indian in the child" as part of the government's assimilation policy.

 

The government tried to undermine the ancient matriarchal society of First Nations people by demeaning and degrading native women, he said.

 

"They needed to break our structure down to undermine the authority of our women," John told the second day of the public inquiry.

 

During his submission, the inquiry could hear drums and chanting on the street below as part of a First Nations protest about what they call a "sham" inquiry....

 

 

The Canadian Press reports, 12 Oct 2011:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/12/bc-missing-women-pickton-inquiry.html

 

Police urge Pickton inquiry not to judge in hindsight

 

The failed investigations that allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to spend years murdering sex workers before his arrest shouldn't be viewed through the prism of hindsight, lawyers for the Vancouver police and the RCMP told a public inquiry into the case Wednesday.

 

The two police agencies have been under intense criticism since prostitutes first began disappearing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in the 1990s, and the first two days of a provincial public inquiry have already seen both forces accused of racism, prejudice and indifference.

 

But in their opening statements, lawyers for the police agencies urged commissioner Wally Oppal to judge them based on what officers on the ground knew when they investigated reports of missing women and allegations involving Pickton, rather than measuring them against all the gruesome facts that have emerged since the serial killer's arrest.

 

"It is all too easy with the benefit of hindsight to take issue with the past work done and decisions made by individuals in circumstances where they did not have all of the information that is known today," said Cheryl Tobias, who represents the RCMP.

 

"And while fair and constructive criticism by a commission of inquiry is to be expected when warranted, we trust that the commission will not have as its focus the desire to make findings of misconduct or otherwise to punish officials whose good faith and sincere wish that Robert Pickton could have been caught earlier cannot be doubted."

 

The inquiry has already been told about a series of alleged missteps involving both police agencies.

 

Some errors acknowledged

 

Those errors include failing to take reports of missing women seriously; ignoring a Vancouver officer who warned there was likely a serial killer at work; failing to tell the public that a serial murderer could be at large; brushing aside tips implicating Pickton; and botching police interviews with Pickton himself.

 

The Vancouver police released a report last year that was critical of both forces and has apologized on several occasions. The RCMP has never offered such an apology or publicly acknowledged that its officers made mistakes.

 

Vancouver police's lawyer repeated the force's apology during the public inquiry on Wednesday. "Let me say directly to the families of the victims: the VPD apologizes for its role in not catching Pickton sooner," said Sean Hern, the lawyer for the Vancouver police and the city's police board.

 

"It is deeply sorry for the shortcomings of the investigation and it regrets that it did not understand earlier the terrible gravity of the situation the missing women presented."

 

Responsibility, not blame

 

Still, while the Vancouver police was prepared to take responsibility for the failed investigation, it appeared less willing to accept blame.

 

"The evidence you hear about the police investigation into the missing women will always be overshadowed by our present knowledge of the terrible reality of what was occurring," said Hern.

 

"The hindsight that we now have is similar to looking down at the landscape from a bird's-eye view. Today, we see one clear path connecting the Downtown Eastside to the horrors of the [Pickton] pig farm [in Port Coquitlam]. But during the investigation itself, the investigators stood on the surface of a flat landscape with hundreds of possibilities and few landmarks to guide them."

 

Hern acknowledged some officers had strong suspicious that a serial killer was murdering sex workers, but he said it was just one of a number of theories that needed to be considered at the time.

 

The Vancouver police released an internal report last year that detailed a number of errors throughout the investigation, placing a considerable blame on the RCMP in nearby Coquitlam, which was investigating Pickton even as he continued bringing sex workers to his farm and butchering them.

 

An internal RCMP review was released by the inquiry this week. The RCMP investigated Pickton after an assault on a sex worker in 1997, for which attempted murder charges were dropped by the Crown, and later when tips alleged Pickton was harming prostitutes from Vancouver.

 

Prepared in 2002 in response to a civil lawsuit, the report admits there were difficulties in corroborating allegations that Pickton was involved in killing sex workers, but nevertheless suggested the force did all it could.

 

The report also says the RCMP was able to work well with the Vancouver police, in contrast to allegations that a turf war had erupted between the two forces, and it complained that scarce resources were spread across a number of high-profile

 

Protests early Wednesday

 

Protesters shut down traffic in downtown Vancouver for the second day in a row to voice their concerns about the inquiry.

 

About 50 protesters set up a tent in the middle of on West Georgia Street, forcing police to block traffic between Seymour and Howe Street, as the inquiry opened in a nearby office building.

 

The protesters, who included representatives from women's and sex trade workers advocacy groups from the city's Downtown Eastside are demanding better legal representation at the inquiry.

 

More than 20 advocacy groups and other organizations have withdrawn from the inquiry because they say they can't afford to pay for lawyers themselves to represent them at the complex proceedings.

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

I've just posted a very good summary of the reasons that various groups have dropped out of the Missing Women's Commission Inquiry that originally appeared in The Rabble earlier this week.

 

One significant point that I haven't seen emphasized elsewhere is:

 

The actions of the police during the inquiry have been to protect sex offenders instead of vulnerable women. The VPD opposed an application for procedural protection of vulnerable witnesses, including the opportunity to testify through anonymous affidavits. The police have argued that evidence from vulnerable women should be able to be used against them in any potential criminal proceedings later on. The police are well aware that without anonymity and confidentiality, witnesses from the DTES will not testify. On the other hand, police want to protect sex offenders and have advocated for the names of sex offenders to be removed from the public record of documents.

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

Expect to hear more lunacy from Lee Lakeman and others at Vancouver Rape Relief throughout the hearing, unfortunately. That agency sometimes makes Andrea Dworkin look moderate. Their inflammatory rhetoric boils down to one thing: the interaction between prostitutes and clients is, by definition, violent and degrading for the prostitute. Period.

 

That there are some police officers who rob prostitutes is an age-old problem. They seize the money in prostitutes' possession because, they say, it's obviously the proceeds of crime.

[scribbles 6031]

What I'm about to say will likely be misconstrued, but I hope otherwise.

 

I'm worried that the desire to use this stage as an opportunity to further drive home elements of the argument made in the Himmel case is going to detract from the pursuit of the circumstances surrounding Pickton. I am fully aware that the realities of criminalization have an impact on sex worker safety, and that this contributed to the ease with which Pickton could hunt, but the real questions are not being answered by any of that. Criminalization itself did not lead police to neglect Pickton as a suspect, or drop charges against him when they had first been lain, or stop police from searching his property when he had made the offer. The greater social question contributed to ripening the environment for a predator, but didn't have a direct role in police incompetence or inaction. I'm more interested in seeing the police grilled directly about those issues, and the obvious prejudice that fed into them.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

... I'm more interested in seeing the police grilled directly about those issues, and the obvious prejudice that fed into them.

 

Scribbles, the Inquiry is just getting under way. The usual method in such proceedings, I think, is to first establish background, then work up through the roster of witnesses to expound and clarify the central issues. Only then to conclude with testimony from the most pivotal and central players whose conduct is at the heart of the most burning questions (the questions having been clarified by the previous evidence).

 

An important element in Law Enforcement's conduct is the law that they are called upon to enforce. The witnesses so far have already provided more than an earful about specific police conduct towards prostitutes (willfully ignoring bad dates, displacement tactics, starlight rides, extortion of sexual favours, etc). Rest assured that the police and the Criminal Justice Branch will be called upon by the Inquiry in due time to answer for their conduct.

 

...I'm worried that the desire to use this stage as an opportunity to further drive home elements of the argument made in the Himmel case is going to detract from the pursuit of the circumstances surrounding Pickton....

 

Of course, the Pickton case was an important element inspiring the launch of the Constitutional challenge in 2007, which has subsequently resulted in the Himel ruling and its ongoing appeals process. Both Bedford v Canada and the Missing Women Inquiry were born from the same underlying reality. "Real questions" in the Missing Women Inquiry benefit from the acknowledgment of these facts, independently of how the same facts were acknowledged in a different venue (Bedford v Canada) for the purposes of the constitutional challenge.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

James Keller reports for The Canadian Press, 20 Oct 2011:

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/parliament-not-police-responsible-for-isolating-prostitutes-vpd-lawyer-132269968.html

 

Parliament, not police, responsible for isolating prostitutes: VPD lawyer

 

The Vancouver Police Department's decades-long campaign to move sex workers into the darkest, dirtiest streets of the city's Downtown Eastside was only in response to a law that intended to keep prostitutes out of sight, the force's lawyer told a public inquiry Thursday.

 

The hearing into the Robert Pickton case has heard from several witnesses who have complained about police tactics that have displaced sex workers and contained them in dangerously isolated areas of the city, where they are easy prey for predators.

 

But

Vancouver police lawyer Tim Dickson suggested the force was only doing the best it could under the law that prohibits communication for the purposes of prostitution, which came into effect in 1985.

The law replaced previous provisions that made solicitation a crime.

 

"The police have a mandate to enforce a law that has as its purpose removing prostitution from streets and from view ... but when the police do enforce the law, the street prostitution doesn't go away, it just goes somewhere else," Dickson said when cross-examining Simon Fraser University criminologist John Lowman.

 

"That's the general pattern," replied Lowman.

 

Dickson argued the law was never intended to eradicate prostitution, but rather address the public nuisances associated with sex work. He noted displace-and-contain strategies such as those used in Vancouver, which create areas in which prostitution is tolerated, are in place in other cities across Canada.

 

Neither did the law attempt to address any of the underlying causes of prostitution, said Dickson, which he said would have required intervention at all three levels of government.

 

"And the best practical response the police can offer, at least from an enforcement standpoint, is to create a zone of tolerance," said Dickson.

 

"In terms of those issues, yes," replied Lowman.

 

Lowman said the law only appears to target street-level sex work, leaving a two-tiered system in which safer forms of prostitution such as escort services and massage parlours are effectively legal.

 

Lowman earlier testified that street prostitutes are on the bottom of those two tiers, where drug-addicted women, often aboriginal, sell sex to feed their habits and survive.

 

Dickson also noted changes in how Vancouver police respond to the sex trade.

 

Lowman presented statistics about charges against sex workers.

Through much of the 1990s, Vancouver police laid hundreds of charges a year of communicating for the purposes of prostitution.

 

Dickson said that's no longer the case.

 

"Charges against sex-trade workers have declined dramatically," said Dickson. "And these days, there are extremely few charges against sex workers laid by the VPD."

....

 

The hearings are expected to stretch on for months, hearing from a range of experts, investigators, prosecutors and sex workers.

 

The families of Pickton's victims will begin their testimony next week.

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

The word on the streets in the Downtown Eastside is that prostitutes' groups were denied funding to pay for legal support in the inquiry because too many of the street-based sex workers knew about the Picton farm years before Picton was arrested. While it is generally assumed that only one woman survived going to the Picton farm, in fact many women had been there and had been subjected to violence and threats. Some had seen things that horrified them. The police were informed about Picton and the farm, many times but these reports weren't taken seriously or investigated because they were made by prostitutes, most of whom had serious addictions to illegal substances.

 

There are also reports that some of the drug dealers knew Picton and told him about some women who later went missing. It's a matter of public record that Picton lured women into going with him by offering them drugs and promising to give them more if they would go to the farm.

 

I believe the street workers. I don't know what to make of the reports about the drug dealers and I don't know any dealers myself. What I do know is that the drug trade is an integral aspect of the Vancouver economy, and that every year more than $1 billion worth of heroin is sold in broad daylight on one particular street corner which is only a couple of blocks away from the neighbourhood police station.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Suzanne Fournier reports for The Province, 27 Oct 2011:

 

http://www.canada.com/news/Daughter+Pickton+victim+turned+down+compensation+payout+inquiry+hears/5618864/story.html

 

The daughter of one of Robert Pickton's victims said she refused a police offer of $10,000 in compensation for her mother's murder.

 

"The fine print though said you had to give up all future legal action and claims," Angel Wolfe told the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry on Thursday.

 

"No one can put a price tag on my mother's death. She'll never see me graduate, walk down the aisle or give birth."

 

The 18-year-old Toronto student said Thursday that she was eight years old when police "very coldly" told her that they thought the remains of her mother Brenda Wolfe were found on the serial killer's pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

 

Police "interrogated" her but then left her to hear the "grotesque" details of her mother's death from the media, Wolfe told the Vancouver inquiry.

 

She accused police of letting a "monster" troll Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside for victims for decades "because my mother and many of the other women were poor, First Nations in the high-risk street sex trade."

 

"I didn't know why no one wanted to protect these women."

 

... Wolfe told the inquiry she ran away from an abusive Ontario foster home and at 15, found her way back to the stepmother she'd lived with as a child, before her father abandoned the family.

 

Bridget Perrier, Wolfe's stepmother, said she and Wolfe now give a course to social workers and police called "Sex Trade 101" to help them respect women forced into prostitution by poverty or addiction.

 

Wolfe is now lobbying for First Nations counsellors and other resources, such as education benefits for the children of missing women.

 

"I had a horrible childhood in some ways but I'm very lucky to live now with Bridget and a family that loves me," said Wolfe, who is also a teen delegate to the aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian residential schools.

 

Meanwhile, the inquiry is already running out of time and will require government action to extend its timetable.

 

Families of 18 murdered women who have travelled from other cities and provinces are upset that they will not get a chance to give testimony.

 

Only four days were initially set aside to hear from family members, some of whom have never spoken publicly of how, when and why their loved ones vanished and then how they found out those women had been murdered.

 

The last scheduled day was Thursday.

 

The inquiry is supposed to run until Dec. 1. Next week, Oppal is scheduled to hear from Vancouver Police Department and RCMP witnesses...

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Neal Hall reports for the Vancouver Sun, 29 Oct 2011:

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/approves+extension+deadline+Missing+Women+inquiry/5624178/story.html

 

Attorney General Shirley Bond announced Friday she has granted a six-month extension to the deadline for the Missing Women inquiry.

 

The inquiry was supposed to submit its final report by Dec. 31 but only began hearings three weeks ago and isn't expected to wrap up until next spring.

 

The inquiry had asked for a one-year extension but Bond granted only a six-month extension of the deadline, which now is June 30, 2012.

 

The attorney general said in a statement Friday that the extension will add to the inquiry's budget, which has cost $2.5 million so far...

[Lowdark 5613]

I am not sure who to feel more rage against, the authorities that failed with such indifferent carelessness or the public that didn't demand better. Obviously the government and the police don't want all relevant facts to be discovered otherwise they would have offered a level playing field to everyone and given all groups with legal standing equal funding, not just themselves. And without a doubt, prejudice and maybe even some corruption played a part, very embarrassing to have that come out, but this went on for years. I remember reading articles about the ongoing disappearances here in Ottawa in the 90's, well before this creature was caged. But despite the incompetence on the part of the police and the neglect from civic authorities, if the outcry from the public had been significant, the authorities would have acted. Politicans usually only listen to two things-money and opinion polls. Should the leaders involved be ashamed and humiliated? Absolutely. But the uncaring public in Vancouver should be equally disgusted with itself.

[daddio 2704]

Hi there WIT:

 

That is a huge post.

 

And to tell you the truth I just skimmed it.

 

I attended part of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission meeting on Aboriginal Residential Schools.

 

I may not have this completely right because it is a complex, generational issue but as I understand the history, many of the sex workers in Vancouver were aboriginal and I believe that the official government policy of "assimilation" led to displacement and loss of identity, and with no place to fit in our male, white, dominated society.

 

Not exactly a thesis but it's what I think.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Neal Hall reports for the Vancouver Sun, 8 Nov 2011:

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/officers+raised+alarm+1998+about+missing+women+inquiry+told/5677789/story.html#ixzz1dB3yng1P

 

Two Vancouver police officers wrote memos to their superiors in 1998 raising the alarm about the growing number of missing women in the Downtown Eastside, the Missing Women inquiry heard Tuesday.

Const. Dave Dickson, who worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) for years, wrote a memo Nov. 5, 1998, expressing his concern about the number of missing women in the area.

 

"I feel very strongly that a large percentage of the women have met foul play," Dickson said in his memo, which was read out at the inquiry, which is probing why it took so long to catch serial killer Robert (Willy) Pickton.

 

Dickson stated in his memo that in his experience, women involved in the street sex trade may disappear for a week or two, then they return to the streets.

 

He suggested the missing women "deserve some attention" from the police department and the number of women vanishing seemed to be escalating.

 

Deputy Chief Doug LePard testified Tuesday at the inquiry that Dickson's concern wasn't taken seriously enough.

 

The inquiry also heard that Constable Lori Shenher, who was assigned in July 1998 as a second detective in the Vancouver police missing persons unit, wrote a similar memo on Aug. 27, 1998.

 

Shenher's wrote that the women reported missing disappeared under "suspicious circumstances."

 

She added: "I believe we're going to find these cases are related and should be treated as such."

 

"They were both raising the alarm," LePard told the inquiry.

 

At the time, LePard testified, he was the sergeant in charge of the home invasion task force, a well-funded temporary investigative unit that had no trouble with funding and resources because it was considered a high priority because it involved elderly citizens being targeted.

 

He admitted the missing women case wasn't given the same priority, mainly because managers in the upper ranks did not believe there was a serial killer preying on women prostitutes in the DTES.

 

"Had management of the day truly accepted the nature of the problem, it could have been resourced," LePard told inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal, a former judge and B.C. attorney general.

 

As it turned out, VPD loaned 29 officers to the joint forces investigation with the RCMP after Pickton was arrested in 2002 and police spent almost two years doing an exhaustive forensic search of the farm -- the largest police search in Canadian history.

 

At the time, in July and August 1998, Vancouver police had received two tips from the same man about Pickton being a suspect. The tipster said "Willy" was a "sicko" who lived on a farm in Port Coquitlam, worked for P&B Used Building Supplies and may be responsible for all the missing women.

 

The tipster also said Willy had 10 women's purses inside his trailer at the farm, as well as women's identification, and had slashed a woman's throat in the past.

 

That was a reference to Pickton's 1997 knife attack on a prostitutes from the DTES. The woman had fled naked and bleeding from Pickton's farm and had later died in hospital, but was revived.

 

Pickton was charged with attempted murder and unlawful confinement but those charges were stayed by the Crown in early 1998. The inquiry will later examine the reasons for the Crown's decision to stay the charges.

 

LePard testified the 1998 tips were passed along to Coquitlam RCMP because it had jurisdiction to investigate Pickton after the 1997 attack.

 

He said the Shenher met with the tipster a number of times and believed the man, Bill Hiscox, was considered credible but there were no bodies or crime scene, so Vancouver police had no way to confirm whether Hiscox's information was accurate.

 

The inquiry was told Monday that

Kim Rossmo, an expert in serial crime who headed the VPD's one-man geographic profiling unit in 1998, had wanted to issue a press release advising the public that police were looking into the possibility of a serial killer preying on women in the DTES.

 

But a commanding officer at the time, then inspector Fred Biddlecombe, felt the press release was inflammatory, so it was never released.

 

LePard testified he thought the press release should have been released but added even if it had been released it likely wouldn't have deterred women from working the streets because of their addiction problems.

 

"Shouldn't that choice have been up to the women who are the potential victims of a serial killer," commission counsel Art Vertlieb asked.

 

LePard agreed but pointed out that the street prostitutes already believed a serial killer was at work.

 

He added that between 1993 and 1998, 10 sex trade workers had been murdered, "so it wasn't a secret that this work was extremely dangerous."

...

 

 

James Keller reports for the Canadian Press:

 

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111108/bc_pickton_inquiry_one_investigator_111108/20111108/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

 

Robert Pickton was the top suspect in the disappearance of sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in the late 1990s, but investigators with the city's police force didn't pursue him because they believed he wasn't in their jurisdiction, the inquiry into the case heard Tuesday.

 

Deputy Chief Doug LePard said while his force had received "credible" tips that Pickton may have been hunting sex workers in the troubled neighbourhood, those tips suggested he was murdering them and disposing of their bodies at his farm in Port Coquitlam, which is policed by the RCMP.

 

That meant a team of investigators with the Vancouver police were left to pursue other potential suspects, even though Pickton was at the top of their list by mid-1998 -- nearly four years before his arrest.

 

"The information about Pickton certainly was that a crime or crimes had been committed on his property in Coquitlam; there was no suggestion or information that any crime had occurred in Vancouver," LePard said during his second day of testimony.

 

The two police forces have long faced accusations that concerns over jurisdiction -- or even a full-blown turf war -- hampered their abilities to put the pieces together that would have allowed them to stop Pickton sooner.

 

Pickton first came to the attention of the Vancouver police in the summer of 1998, when the force received two tips through Crime Stoppers that Pickton was picking up sex workers from Vancouver and other areas of the Lower Mainland and killing them at his farm.

 

At the same time, officers were slowly coming to the realization that the missing sex workers met foul play, possibly at the hands of a serial killer. As investigators drew up lists of potential suspects, Pickton was consistently at the top.

 

But aside from connecting the RCMP with informants and providing other information, investigators in Vancouver were not actively pursuing Pickton on their own, said LePard.

 

In December 1999, Vancouver Sgt. Geramy Field, who was in charge of the missing women investigation at the time, wrote in a memo that the Mounties were no longer treating their investigation of Pickton as a high priority.

 

Even then, LePard said there was little Vancouver police could do other than put pressure on the RCMP to make Pickton a priority.

 

He conceded that Vancouver police failed to do that.

 

"Was there more that they could have done. . .? Yes, I believe that there was," said LePard.

 

LePard noted Field was pressing for a joint-force operation to include the Vancouver police and the RCMP in a single investigation, but that didn't happen until 2001.

 

LePard said senior management within the Vancouver police weren't doing enough to support such an operation.

 

"There should have been more management involvement in that," said LePard. "You'll see from acting Insp. Dan Dureau (head of the major crimes section), that he really didn't have a good understanding of what the information was in the case."

 

LePard was also forced to answer questions about poor staffing that appeared to strain the Vancouver Police Department's missing women investigation from the outset.

 

At first, reports of missing sex workers were handled by the missing-person unit's lone investigator. By 1998, the unit had an officer, Det. Const. Lori Shenher, assigned full-time to the missing women investigation.

 

It wasn't until April 1999 -- roughly two years after an increase in reports of missing sex workers -- that the force added a second officer, Const. Dave Dickson, a well-known beat cop in the Downtown Eastside.

 

By then, both Shenher and Dickson had warned their superiors that the disappearances appeared suspicious and likely related, but senior officers dismissed those theories and instead believed the women were transient and weren't actually missing.

 

In the spring of 1999, Shenher asked that six additional officers be assigned to the case. She got three.

 

"Had management of the day truly accepted the nature of the problem, it was possible to resource it properly," said LePard

 

"But because of the lack of understanding of the nature of the problem, there were incredible resource pressures."

 

At its height in the summer of 1999, LePard said the missing women investigation had seven full-time staff, including six officers and a civilian clerk. By the end of the year, two of those officers were reassigned to other homicide cases....

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Tamsyn Burgmann reports for The Canadian Press, 1 Dec 2011:

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/commissioner-of-the-robert-pickton-investigation-defends-police-witness-134842858.html

 

The head of the public inquiry into the Robert Pickton case stepped into the proceedings Thursday to defend a key police witness after a lawyer accused the senior officer of misleading the commission.

"I'm troubled by those allegations and I'm taking the unusual step at this stage to say that I see no evidence of that. None," Commissioner Wally Oppal told lawyers before hearings continued. "I see at most a strong difference of opinion."

 

Lawyer Darrell Roberts, who is representing First Nations interests, had on Wednesday accused Doug LePard, Vancouver's deputy police chief, of lying under oath.

He suggested LePard was deflecting blame to the RCMP for not catching the serial killer sooner, an allegation LePard denied.

 

LePard has written a review of the Vancouver force's handling of the case and in it, noted the RCMP were responsible for the jurisdiction where Pickton's farm was located and Vancouver officers' hands were tied because of it.

 

Oppal characterized LePard's testimony as "consistent" and called Roberts' comments "inflammatory," saying they could have negative consequences.

He asked the lawyers to treat LePard with respect, noting he has 30 years experience in policing and has already spent 10 days on the stand.

 

"I am not prejudging the case," Oppal added.

 

Roberts, who said he's been practising law since 1964, replied he felt the issues at hand gave him justification to bring up what he called "the elephant in the room."

 

He said Vancouver police must be questioned around whether the force had the legal jurisdiction to investigate kidnapping by fraud....

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Suzanne Fournier reports for The Province, 12 Jan 2012:

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Senior+Mountie+defers+apology+RCMP+failures+Pickton+investigation/5987158/story.html

 

An RCMP officer who paid a "social visit" alone to Robert Pickton in 2001 tipped the pig farmer that two informants had accused Pickton of "killing people and doing all sorts of horrible things."

 

But RCMP Supt. Bob Williams refused to say on the stand at the Missing Women Inquiry Thursday if naming those informants put their lives at risk or undermined what was still an active serial-murder investigation.

 

Williams interviewed the officer, Cpl. Frank Henley, for his 2002 report on whether the Mounties could be liable for civil lawsuit compensation to the families of women murdered by Pickton.

 

"Snitches are not welcome in the criminal underworld, in fact they are probably often killed?" demanded lawyer Jason Gratl, a lawyer acting for Downtown Eastside aboriginal and women's groups.

 

Pressed by Gratl to say if revealing sources was a "breach of discipline . . . or a firing offence," Williams, the first senior Mountie to take the stand, protested, "that's going pretty far."

 

Williams testified that one of Henley's reasons for his "visit" to Pickton may have been that the Mountie might have been curious, "trying to get a handle on what makes him (Pickton) tick, that sort of thing."

 

Williams noted Henley also visited Pickton "on his mistaken belief that the police investigation (into Pickton as a serial killer) had shut down."

Aside from curiosity, Williams was at a loss to account for Henley, protesting "it would be better if he explained his reasons" to the inquiry.

 

Henley gave Pickton the names of informants Ross Caldwell and Lynn Ellingsen, whose eyewitness evidence later helped convict Pickton.

 

Pickton was at the time of Henley's visit a key focus of the joint RCMP-Vancouver police Missing Women Task Force.

 

Asked if Henley's perceptions were "odd," Williams shot back:

"There's lots of oddities in this investigation."

 

Williams, a 44-year veteran Mountie, said he would not have condoned the visit by Henley.

 

Several lawyers at the inquiry, as well as victims' families, are pushing for the inquiry to call front-line investigators, instead of "armchair experts" or top officers like Williams and Vancouver Police Department Deputy Chief Doug LePard.

 

Next Monday, however, the inquiry will hear from another "review" witness, Peel, Ont., Region Deputy Chief Jennifer Evans, who last year conducted an exhaustive review of the Pickton investigation for the inquiry....