The B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected an argument the black box in a pickup involved in a fatal collision is private and should not have been subject to search without a warrant.

Fifty-four-year-old Wayne Fedan of Kamloops was convicted in September 2014 of dangerous driving causing death following a trial. He was sentenced to three years in prison and handed a three-year driving ban to begin following his sentence.

The crash at the turn in front of the entrance to McArthur Island on March 20, 2010, killed 20-year-old Brittany Plotnikoff and 38-year-old Kenneth Craigdaillie. All three were at a party together and Fedan was driving them home.

Lawyers working for the construction worker appealed the conviction, arguing he had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” from a search of his pickup’s black box.

Lawyers argued that search requires a warrant.

Using that black box, an RCMP accident reconstructionist determined Fedan’s foot was on the accelerator as he rounded the turn at more than twice the posted speed limit.

Writing a decision for all three justices, Justice Daphne Smith said information recovered from he black box, known as a sensing diagnostic module (SDM), is not akin to retrieving information from that of a cellphone or personal computer.

“Standing alone, the data provided no personal identifiers that could link Mr. Fedan to the captured data,” Smith wrote. “He therefore had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the SDM or its data after the vehicle was lawfully seized.”

Smith said the SDM provided only five seconds of data before the crash.

“It did not capture any information that revealed intimate details of Mr. Fedan’s biological core and, in particular, who was driving the car,” Smith wrote.

Jason Robertson

Defence lawyers argued Monday that a B.C. Supreme Court justice should determine in a closed courtroom whether tips provided to police that led to a raid on a Kamloops couple’s three homes — netting drugs, guns and cash — are enough to grant a search warrant or are based on rumour.

However, Crown prosecutor Iain Currie told Justice Jeanne Watchuk that the right to anonymity for RCMP informants is clear and any airing of material in court — even if it is closed to the public and only in the presence of the prosecutor and judge — is allowed only in narrow circumstances.

The trial of Jason and Sarah Robertson began Monday with the first in what is expected to be a series of Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenges by the defence.

Those efforts are aimed at challenging the RCMP’s right to obtain a search warrant based on tips provided to them, as well as the legality of the search itself. In earlier pre-trial hearings, the defence revealed it has surveillance video from one of the raids, video that has not been seen by police or the Crown.

Together, the couple faces 18 weapons-related offences.

Defence lawyer Julian van der Walle is challenging whether all the tips that led to police being granted the search warrant are “firsthand knowledge” as claimed by police. He is asking Watchuk to view those documents to determine if those tips were firsthand or based on rumour.

Currie said documents that may reveal informants must be kept confidential and any information stemming from them could reveal tipsters. In the Kamloops RCMP detachment, Currie said, only a single senior RCMP officer has the key to a safe containing confidential informant reports.

“It’s exclusively accessible by that person,” Currie said.

Following the raid in 2014, Kamloops RCMP Supt. Brad Mueller showed reporters 40 firearms, bags of marijuana and cocaine and what police said were thousands of dollars in stolen electronics. Mounties said the operation was gang-related and Hells Angels stickers were displayed at the press conference.

On May 7 and May 8, 2014, police executed search warrants on three Kamloops homes owned by Jason Robertson — one in Sahali, one in Westsyde and one in Batchelor Heights.

The Sahali home was Robertson’s main residence, according to police.

The Crown also said at an earlier court hearing that police found $50,000 in cash inside the Sahali home.

A 30-year-old man was stabbed late Friday afternoon on the sidewalk in front of Hatsuki Sushi in North Kamloops. He died seven hours later in Royal Inland Hospital.
Dave Eagles/KTW

A suspect in the murder of a 30-year-old man outside a North Kamloops sushi restaurant last week has been taken into custody, KTW has learned.

The 32-year-old was arrested on Tuesday and charged with breach of probation.

He is being held in custody on that charge.

KTW is not publishing his name because no charges have been laid relating to the murder.

Just before 5 p.m. on Jan. 22, emergency crews were called to the 400-block of Tranquille Road for a reported stabbing.

A man had been injured in an altercation outside Hatsuki Sushi. He was rushed to hospital, but died hours later.

The owner of Hatsuki Sushi told KTW an intoxicated trio — two men and a woman — became involved in an argument outside his restaurant.

Moments later, he said, a bleeding victim entered seeking refuge.

Employees and customers called 911.

The name of the victim has not been released.

Kamloops Mounties say the attack was not random, noting the suspect and victim knew each other.

Two Salmon Arm parents have been convicted of assault with a weapon after spanking their 14-year-old daughter — one with a mini-hockey stick, the other a skipping rope — after learning she sent nude photos on the mobile app Snapchat.

The accused cannot be named to protect the identity of their daughter.

On Valentine’s Day 2015, the father seized his daughter’s cellphone after she renewed acquaintances with a young man her family did not like.

Reading through his daughter’s text messages, the father found references to nude photos being sent on the Snapchat app.

He confronted his daughter and offered her two options for punishment — be grounded for an extended period or be spanked.

She chose the latter and the father took her to the garage of the home, where he used an 18-inch plastic mini-hockey stick to spank his daughter two or three times on the buttocks, over top of her pyjama bottoms.

A short time later, the girl’s mother returned home and struck her daughter two or three times on the buttocks with a skipping rope.

While administering the spankings, both mother and father told their daughter they were punishing her out of love, not hate.

“The child understood that her parents’s beliefs about discipline came from their adherence to the Bible, which they believe advocates the use of the ‘rod’ to spank, rather than the hands, as hands are to be used as instruments of love,” Salmon Arm provincial court Judge Edmond de Walle said in his ruling.

On Feb. 16, 2015, the girl told two friends at school about the spankings and showed them the her buttocks.

De Walle noted one friend noticed they were red and swollen and covered in purple and green bruises, while the other friend saw red and purple marks.

The friends then told the school principal, who then called the Ministry of Children and Family and a police investigation began.

A trial took place in November and a ruling was released this week.

In the ruling, de Walle said the spankings were not reasonable and convicted both parents. They are due back in court for sentencing on March 4.

De Walle noted section 34 of the Criminal Code of Canada allows a parent to use force “by way of correction,” noting the force must be intended for educative or corrective purposes.

“It is my finding that the force applied to the child was clearly not intended for  educative or corrective purposes,” de Walle wrote.

“The father testified that his purpose in spanking the daughter was for punishment. He was unable to articulate any other purpose for the spanking.”

The judge noted the Supreme Court of Canada has concluded the spanking exemption in the criminal code does not apply to corporal punishment of children under two or teenagers, based on current expert consensus.

In addition, Canada’s top court has concluded that “only minor corrective force of a transitory and trifling nature” can be exempted from criminal sanction.

“The parents took no educative or corrective steps by seeking out expert help or any other assistance to discuss their daughter’s actions with her,” de Walle wrote.

“Their actions were solely punitive and not corrective. In my view, the actions of the parents were also degrading.”

Earlier this month, KTW published a story on possible changes to the Criminal Code of Canada with respect to spanking.

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Conservative MP Cathy McLeod said Canadians deserve to be consulted before the Liberal government removes a section of the Criminal Code that allows parents to spank their kids.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to adopt all recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

One of those recommendations calls for removal the section of the Criminal Code that allows spanking, or corporal punishment, within strict limits.

Jason Robertson

A Kamloops police officer admitted in court on Friday to seizing items he shouldn’t have during a highly publicized drug and weapons bust in 2014.

RCMP Const. Peter Froyland also said he seized luggage from the home of Jason and Sarah Robertson solely to help police transport the stash of guns, drugs, money and documents back to the detachment.

The Robertsons are standing trial on a raft of firearms-related offences stemming from a May 2014 raid of their Sahali home.

At the time of the bust, police said they seized 40 firearms, 10 ounces of cocaine and 15 pounds of marijuana, as well as $50,000 in cash.

Sarah Robertson

In B.C. Supreme Court on Friday, Froyland admitted he seized a number of items that were “outside the scope” of the search warrant police had obtained from a judge — including passports, fishing equipment, foreign currency, cologne and a 10-ounce silver bar.

Investigators were authorized to seize unauthorized, restricted or prohibited firearms. Froyland said police knew prior to the raid that Robertson had a number of legal firearms.

Despite that, officers seized every firearm they could find, legal or not.

“There are some items seized by myself that, looking back, if I could do it over again, I may not have seized,” Froyland said. “It was a very overwhelming day — just the sheer volume of what I’d faced.”

Defence lawyer Julian van der Walle pressed Froyland on the seized passports and the reason for their seizure. Froyland had previously testified that seizing them to prevent travel “never crossed his mind.”

Van der Walle suggested to Froyland that he told another officer: “Seize them. That way they can’t go anywhere.”

“It’s possible you did say that?” van der Walle asked.

“It is possible,” Froyland replied. “I don’t recall that conversation.”

At the time of the raid, police held a press conference displaying the items seized from the Robertson home and two others owned by the family, describing the bust as gang-related.

The trial is expected to continue next week.

Former radio star Jian Ghomeshi came across as a humble, charming and chivalrous gentleman who, without warning, would turn dark and violent, a witness told his sexual assault trial yesterday.

However, in an intense cross-examination, Ghomeshi’s lawyer accused the woman of, at best, failing to remember important details of what she said happened or, at worst, of making up some of her story.

In her opening testimony, the woman, who once considered Ghomeshi good dating material, described how he had shocked her by going from sweet and polite to pulling her hair so hard that it hurt.

“It felt almost like a rage that wasn’t there the second before he did it,’’ said the woman, who can’t be identified.

“It was very confusing.’’

The incident in December 2002 occurred as they sat in what she described as his “love bug,’’ a yellow VW Beetle, near the CBC building in Toronto, she told court.

The woman, then 41, had met Ghomeshi at a Christmas party and he had invited her to a show taping, after which they went for a drink. Ghomeshi had been flirtatious, but she had no qualms accepting a ride with him.

“I remember thinking: he’s funny, he’s intelligent, he opens doors, he’s a perfect gentleman,” she said.

After the hair-grabbing, Ghomeshi seemed to “switch back’’ to the charming guy of earlier, she said, leaving her wondering if he simply didn’t know his own strength.

“I questioned whether he actually meant to hurt me,’’ she said.

On a “happy night’’ about a month later, she accepted his invitation to go alone with him to his house.

They were standing up kissing when he went behind her, grabbed her hair and yanked her to her knees, she told prosecutor Michael Callaghan.

“At the same time, he’s punching me in the head. Multiple times. I’m terrified. Then I start to cry,’’ she testified.

“He threw me out like trash. He had nothing to say. I was frozen in fear and sadness.’’

The woman said she didn’t go to police at the time because she didn’t think it would go anywhere.

Still, the incidents preyed on her, especially as his popularity grew and he became more publicly visible.

“Something that I was trying to bury kept resurfacing and I had to relive the violence over and over,’’ she said.

It was only in 2014 when Ghomeshi, now 48, went on Facebook to say he had “rough’’ but only consensual sex with women that she began to think about speaking out.

She went to the media and then police after Toronto’s then-police chief urged any victims to come forward.

Under cross-examination, the woman denied she was unhappy the popular host of CBC’s Q appeared to have lost interest in her after the initial encounter.

Ghomeshi’s lawyer, Marie Henein, also said the former radio star didn’t have a VW Beetle at the time of their first encounter.

“What I saw was what I saw,’’ the woman responded. “It looked like that to me.’’

Henein made much of several discrepancies in what the woman told court, police or the media, even at one point accusing her of a “false memory’’ or lying.

“It was not a lie,’’ the witness countered at one point.

“This wasn’t carefully thought out,’’ she said at another point.

Henein, known for her take-no-prisoners style, elicited from the witness that police interviewed her only once for about an hour before charging him over the two alleged incidents.

The lawyer also suggested the witness had told a friend at the time she was “smitten’’ with Ghomeshi, something she denied.

“I really liked him. It was that one incident that I’d had,’’ she said of the first hair-pulling.

“I did want to see him again.’’

She never did see Ghomeshi after the second incident, she testified in a mostly steady fashion.

Ghomeshi has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual assault — two of which relate to the first witness — and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

He is being tried by judge alone.

“To state the obvious, this trial has attracted an extraordinary amount of media attention,’’ Ontario court Judge William Horkins said as proceedings got underway.

Only one of the three complainants in the case can be identified publicly — actress Lucy DeCoutere, best known for her role in the TV series Trailer Park Boys.

She has yet to testify.

Ghomeshi also faces one other count of sexual assault involving a fourth complainant that will be tried separately in June.

The trial continues today.

— The Canadian Press

A psychologist broke down in tears in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops yesterday while describing her final counselling session with a woman the Crown alleges was murdered by her husband in 2010.

Peter Beckett’s trial on one count of first-degree murder resumed after a week’s break.

The 59-year-old former New Zealand politician is accused of killing his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, while the couple vacationed at a lake near Revelstoke.

Letts-Beckett drowned on Upper Arrow Lake on Aug. 18, 2010. Her death was initially ruled accidental, but Beckett was arrested and charged one year later.

Taking the stand yesterday was Michelle Vandegriend, a counselling psychologist in Alberta, where Beckett and Letts-Beckett lived.

Vandegriend said she treated Letts-Beckett between 2007 and 2010.

Their sessions began as Beckett and Letts-Beckett separated in late 2007 before reconciling in January 2008.

“She was expressing some emotional, verbal and, at times, physical abusive circumstances in the relationship,” Vandegriend said, noting Letts-Beckett was also experiencing anxiety and panic.

“She was questioning her feelings about the relationship.”

Vandegriend said she discussed “risk and safety” with Letts-Beckett as the couple got back together.

Their final session was on June 29, 2010 — less than two months before Letts-Beckett died.

“She had described her 50th birthday coming up and wanting to reconnect with her family,” Vandegriend said through tears.

“It’s just upsetting because it was the last time I’d seen Laura. It was my most vivid memory of her.”

Court has heard Letts-Beckett became estranged from some family members when she and Beckett reconciled.

The Crown alleges Beckett killed his wife out of greed.

Jurors have been told he stood to gain a significant amount of money when she died due to a number of life-insurance and accidental-death policies.

Prosecutor Sarah Firestone said the last life-insurance policy took effect weeks before Letts-Beckett died.

The couple met in 1995 when Letts-Beckett was travelling in New Zealand.

Beckett joined Letts-Beckett in Westlock, Alta., five years later and the pair were wed in 2003.

In the 1990s, Beckett was elected to city council in Napier, New Zealand.

The trial is expected to last three months.

BECKETT AND LETTS

The manager of the provincial park where Peter Beckett’s wife drowned in 2010 told a jury on Tuesday he warned his staff to stay away from the former New Zealand politician, who he found intimidating.

Beckett is standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on one count of first-degree murder. The Crown alleges the 59-year-old killed his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, while the two were on vacation in 2010.

Letts-Beckett drowned in Upper Arrow Lake, near Revelstoke, on Aug. 18, 2010. Her death was initially ruled accidental, but Beckett was charged with her murder one year later.

Shelter Bay Provincial Park manager Colin Titsworth took the stand on Tuesday, telling jurors the Becketts were frequent visitors to his park’s campsite, staying for extended periods each summer — such regulars that he called them “unofficial hosts” of the park.

Titsworth said he and Beckett got along fine until an incident three days into their August 2010 visit to Shelter Bay.

“I met Peter at his campsite and he was definitely intoxicated,” Titsworth said.

“It was a no-brainer he was intoxicated. I can tell when somebody’s drunk, especially when they’re wasted.”

Titsworth said that was out of the norm from his previous experiences with Beckett, whose demeanour was also different, court heard.

“He argued with me about the service level I was providing because I hadn’t brought down the weather [report] that day, and also about the amount of firewood,” Titsworth said.

“I had never experienced that with Mr. Beckett before. He was always a welcoming person. I found it odd. I had seen him drink before, but I hadn’t seen him that drunk. I felt that he was belittling me and I felt intimidated.”

The next day, Titsworth said, he was trying to avoid Beckett when he had another strange encounter with the man.

Titsworth said he was talking with Letts-Beckett when Beckett walked down to the boat launch.

“Mr. Beckett jumped in his boat and drove out into the bay and turned around, about 50 feet off shore, and stood on the bow of his boat, hands on his hips, and watched me as I proceeded through the campsite,” Titsworth said.

“He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.”

Titsworth said he felt uneasy and warned park staffers to stay away from Beckett.

“I told them to avoid Peter while he was on his trip that year,” he said. “There was something about him I didn’t appreciate.”

Four days later, Letts-Beckett drowned in Upper Arrow Lake.

Also taking the stand on Tuesday was John Saharchuk, who carried Letts-Beckett’s body to shore in his pontoon boat.

Saharchuk said he was fishing in his boat with his wife when he was rammed lightly by a Zodiac dinghy driven by a distraught Beckett.

“He was kind of frantic and moving his arms in the air, kind of yelling at my wife and myself that his wife was in trouble,” Saharchuk said.

“I don’t know if he used the word ‘drown’ or not, but she was in the water, anyways.”

Saharchuk said Beckett pointed in the direction of where Letts-Beckett was and the two drove their boats to a small, rocky bay, where the body of Beckett’s wife was half-submerged.

“I went right over to her,” Saharchuk said. “It looked to me like she was very much dead at that point — the colour of her face and everything.

“He jumped out of his boat about 12 feet away from the shore and ran to where we were and started trying to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I thought it was kind of futile, so I said to Mr. Beckett we should get her back to the campsite.”

Back on shore, Saharchuk said, an off-duty paramedic confirmed Letts-Beckett was dead.

Saharchuk told jurors Beckett was “upset” at the time.

Beckett, formerly a city councillor in Napier, New Zealand, moved to Canada in 2000 to be closer to Letts-Beckett. The two had met five years earlier. The couple wed in 2003 and lived in Westlock, Alta.

The Crown has alleged Beckett killed his wife to cash in on life-insurance and accidental-death benefits.

Beckett’s trial is expected to last three months.

Jason Robertson. Facebook photo

A sophisticated home-surveillance video of Kamloops RCMP officers raiding a Sahali residence in May 2014 — withheld from police and the Crown by defence lawyers — was shown for the first time in court Tuesday.

Jason and Sarah Robertson are in B.C. Supreme Court, facing a total of 18 firearms and stolen property charges.

Court heard earlier in the hearings that police began watching the couple and their associates early in 2014, believing Jason Robertson was associated with a Prince George drug trafficking gang known as The Crew and was dealing in kilogram levels of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. The police operation culminated in a May 8, 2014, raid on the couple’s Arrowstone Drive home, along with raids on another home owned by the couple in Westsyde, as well as a third home.

Police seized 40 firearms, cash and electronics from the home which they displayed to reporters in a press conference days later.

Sarah Robertson. Facebook photo

During intermittent legal proceedings over the past year, the charges have been narrowed down from the original 50, with the Crown abandoning drug offences and a number of other allegations. Despite the court time used thus far, the trial itself for the couple has not yet started. The past week has been taken up by a defence challenge to the legality of the police search warrant and the search itself.

That challenge by the defence is bolstered by a surveillance system in the Arrowstone Drive home equipped with 11 cameras on the inside and outside, some of them equipped with audio. Police did not have access to those recordings; Tuesday marked the first time the Crown or any police officers have seen surveillance video of the home during the raid.

Video shown in court included police knocking down the front door with a battering ram and combing through the middle-class house looking for evidence.

“It was overwhelming, the amount of property in there,” Sgt. Gary Senner testified of firearms and electronics in the home, some of it new and duplicate items of tools and TVs, for example.

Senner and a series of other Mounties who searched the home have been questioned by the defence about their techniques and actions — and their answers have been compared to what was recorded on the surveillance system.

Defence challenges to police actions include allegations they didn’t wait long enough before smashing into the home; that Sarah Robertson was not properly warned of her rights before being arrested as she arrived home during the raid; and that police sought to gather information for use later by Revenue Canada or the Civil Forfeiture office.

“It will put a dent in their lifestyle,” one of the RCMP members remarks in the recording shown in court regarding seizure of the couple’s financial records.

Defence lawyer Julian van der Walle also asked Senner why he remarked to another member during the search, after he found ammunition, “I’m going to put a couple shells in the fireplace.”

“It was straight humour,” Senner replied. “There was no intention ever to do that.”

The hearing was adjourned until April 4, when a date will be set for continuation.

That time is intended in part to give the Crown time to view the video evidence in detail and determine whether it will recall witnesses.

BECKETT AND LETTS

A B.C. Supreme Court jury listened intently on Wednesday as the Crown played audio of a statement given by accused killer Peter Beckett to police hours after his wife drowned in a lake near Revelstoke.

In the statement, Beckett, standing trial in Kamloops on one count of first-degree murder, said he heard a sudden splash and turned to see his wife panicking in the water.

Laura Letts-Beckett drowned in Upper Arrow Lake on Aug. 18, 2010. Her death was initially believed to be accidental, but Beckett, formerly a politician in his native New Zealand, was charged with her murder one year later.

The Crown has alleged Beckett killed his wife out of greed, hoping to cash in on life-insurance and accidental-death payouts.

In the statement played in court on Wednesday, Beckett told police his wife’s drowning was an accident.

The two were on the lake in a zodiac dinghy when Letts-Beckett went into the water.

“I was sitting with my back to her and she was sitting with her front to me, I think,” Beckett told RCMP Const. Jennifer Perrault in a thick New Zealand accent.

“The last I can remember, she said that her back was sore. And then, all of a sudden, there’s a splash. I think she stood up to stretch her back.”

Beckett told the investigator he was fishing and his wife was eating an apple and chips while holding an umbrella for shade. He said she had taken off her life jacket because she felt hot. He described her as “a fair-weather sailor” who does not swim.

“She was still holding the umbrella and she fell over the side,” he said. “The umbrella was over the other side. She kind of went down the side of the boat.”

Beckett said he could see his wife drifting farther away from him in the water.

“Then I spun the boat around to look for her and I could see her under the water,” he said. “I went over the side of the boat, but I couldn’t get down far enough.”

In the statement, Beckett said Letts-Beckett was 15 to 20 feet beneath the surface.

“I could see her, but I couldn’t just, couldn’t reach her,” he said. “So, I went to shore and got a rock and swam out, but I couldn’t find her then. Then I saw some bubbles.”

Beckett said he used the rock to get far enough underwater to grab his wife by the hand and pull her to the surface.

“As I was swimming to shore, I was blowing air into her lungs, into her mouth, trying to do CPR,” he said.

After performing chest compressions on shore, Beckett said, he swam out to retrieve his boat and tried unsuccessfully to lift his wife on board.

He said he then decided to drive to a nearby pontoon boat to ask for help.

John Saharchuk told court he drove his pontoon boat to where Beckett said he left his wife.

“I went right over to her,”Saharchuk said. “It looked to me like she was very much dead at that point — the colour of her face and everything.”

After attempting further CPR, Beckett and Saharchuk loaded Letts-Beckett’s body into the pontoon boat and returned to the Shelter Bay campsite, where they were staying.

On shore, Saharchuk said, an off-duty paramedic confirmed Letts-Beckett was dead.

Beckett, formerly a city councillor in Napier, New Zealand, moved to Canada in 2000 to be closer to Letts-Beckett. The two had met five years earlier. The couple wed in 2003 and lived in Westlock, Alta., where Letts-Beckett worked as a schoolteacher.

Beckett’s trial is expected to last three months.

BECKETT AND LETTS

In the days after his wife drowned in a lake near Revelstoke, the former New Zealand politician accused of her murder asked a friend if Google Earth showed live video or static photos in the area where she died, a jury has been told.

Peter Beckett, 59, is standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on one count of first-degree murder. His wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, drowned in Upper Arrow Lake on Aug. 18, 2010.

Her death was initially ruled accidental, but a subsequent police investigation resulted in Beckett’s arrest one year later.

The Crown has alleged Beckett killed his wife out of greed, hoping to cash in on life-insurance and accidental-death benefits, as well as her schoolteachers’ pension.

Taking the stand on Thursday was Ron Hawkins, who described the Becketts as friends. Hawkins and his wife met the Becketts in 2008, court heard, while camping at Shelter Bay Provincial Park near Revelstoke.

The Hawkins lived in Revelstoke. Court has heard Beckett and his wife stayed with them for multiple nights prior to their August 2010 camping trip at Shelter Bay.

After Letts-Beckett drowned, Hawkins said, Beckett stayed with them again.

“We just sat and talked,” Hawkins said in court. “He explained to me that she had fallen off of the boat while he was fishing.

“He just said he thinks she stood up and toppled over or lost her balance or something and went off the boat.”

Hawkins, who described himself as curious, said Beckett eventually became annoyed.

“I think he got a little bit tired,” he said. “He said, ‘I’m getting sick and tired of answering all these questions.'”

At one point, Hawkins said, Beckett asked him about Google Earth.

“We’d somehow got to talking about what you can see on Google Earth,” Hawkins said.

“Peter asked me, ‘What do you see on Google Earth?’ I said, ‘I can show you.'”

Hawkins said he went to his computer and pulled up a location in England, zooming in to show Beckett how the software worked.

“He said he wanted to see Shelter Bay, so we went and zoomed in,” Hawkins said.

“He said, ‘Oh, so you can’t see that much.'”

Hawkins said Beckett then asked him if Google Earth showed live video or old images.

“I told him as far as I knew, it’s not like a webcam on a highway where it’s taking a picture every five minutes,” Hawkins said.

“He said, ‘Oh, that’s OK, then.'”

Following Letts-Beckett’s drowning, Beckett told police her death was an accident. He said she went overboard and panicked and he was unable to get far enough underwater to rescue her.

He said he eventually pulled her to shore and unsuccessfully attempted CPR.

Beckett, a former city councillor in Napier, New Zealand,and Letts-Beckett met in 1995 in his home country. Five years later, he moved to Westlock, Alta., to be closer to her. The couple married in 2003.

Previous witnesses have described their relationship rocky. The Becketts split briefly in late 2007, but reconciled months later.

Around the time of their separation, Letts-Beckett went to police, alleging physical abuse on the part of her husband. No charges were laid.

Through her questioning, defence lawyer Donna Turko has suggested Letts-Beckett was depressed prior to her drowning.

The trial, which began in mid-January, is expected to last three months.

A pair of Thompson Rivers University law professors are challenging a court decision that backed University of Victoria’s right to punish an anti-abortion group for a public demonstration in a case that focuses on free speech rights on campus.

Craig Jones and Micah Rankin, both of whom teach law in Kamloops, along with Andrea Greenwood, are representing the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Cameron Cote, a student who headed an anti-abortion group on campus called Victoria Youth Protecting Youth (YPY).

Craig Jones

They argued yesterday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver that the earlier provincial court decision backing the university’s right to punish YPY and restrict its ability to hold public demonstrations on campus is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The university backed the student society, which designated YPY’s events as “harassment.”

“It’s terribly ironic the university and student society are arguing students should have no legally protected right to free speech on campus,” Jones said in a telephone interview.

YPY has run up against UVic and its student society in past.

In the most recent instance, YPY held a “choice chain” event in which demonstrators held up contrasting images of developing and aborted fetuses.

They endured abuse, including having smoke bombs and stink bombs thrown at them.

Micah Rankin

On separate occasions, UVic’s student society declared YPY events “harassment” and asked the university to take action against the group.

Jones said the B.C. Civil Liberties Association is both a fierce defender of a woman’s right to choose, as well as people’s ability “to            say they’re wrong.”

UVic’s backing of the student society, Jones said, puts “fresh-faced undergraduates with their first taste of power in charge of parsing out their fellows’ speech rights.”

After the 2013 choice chain event, the university revoked YPY’s outdoor space booking privileges for a year and warned that failure to comply could be classified as academic misconduct.

That came after a complaint by the student society to the university.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association unsuccessfully challenged the university in provincial court. The judge determined the university is akin to a private corporation and, unlike government, is not subject to Charter protections.

That decision is under appeal and may eventually make its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“The university’s view . . . is that it should be able to regulate speech on its property as a private landowner and, in this regard, is in no different of a position that a company that operates a gravel pit,” the civil liberties association wrote in its argument.

Irving K. Barber

Thompson Rivers University is seeking nearly $1.3 million from the estate of the forestry legend whose name graces a signifcant part of its newest building for what it claims is an unpaid promise.

But a related estate of Ike Barber argues it has no obligation to pay his pledge, a pledge that died with him four years ago.

A lawsuit was filed in B.C. Supreme Court in 2014 and a defence filed in December.

The university invited Barber to the opening in 2010 after announcing he would contribute $1.5 million to the Brown Family House of Learning, which includes the the Irving K. Barber Centre, the largest in-the-round lecture theatre in the province.

The lawsuit claims Barber paid $225,000 in two instalments. He died in April 2012, when the payments stopped.

Barber was a legendary philanthropist who founded Slocan Forest Products. He attended the University of B.C., where he trained as a forester after serving in the Second World War.

The university lawsuit claims that prior to the donation, Barber set up a spousal trust with his wife, Jean.

But in a statement of defence, the trustees of a related trust said at no time did Barber represent that he was acting as a representative of the trust and that his pledges died with him.

“The estate is unable to fulfil any further obligations under the pledge,” the statement said.

Prior to the TRU donation, Barber gave $10 million to University of B.C.’s Okanagan campus and $2.5 million to Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey.

Barber was asked at the announcement in 2010 by a reporter in Kamloops how much of his fortune he had donated.

“Almost all of it,” he replied.

The claims have not been heard in court.

Kamloops Mounties now have suspects in custody in connection to the first two homicides of the year — though police have yet to release the names of the suspects or victims.

A 65-year-old man was arrested on Friday in connection to the Jan. 26 death of a 49-year-old man in the 4 Seasons motel in Valleyview. No cause of death has been released.

Last week, police arrested a suspect in connection to the Jan. 22 death of a 30-year-old man on a sidewalk on Tranquille Road in North Kamloops. The victim had been with another man and a woman and was stabbed. He died seven hours later in Royal Inland Hospital.

A suspect in that homicide was arrested later on an unrelated charge related to breaching a court order and will return to court on Feb. 15. He has not been charged on connection to the Jan. 22 death.

RCMP Cpl. Cheryl Bush said further details on Friday’s arrest will be released as the investigation progresses in the coming days.

Former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi is on trial in Toronto, charged with four counts of sexual assault and the one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

By Diana Mehta
The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Mere hours after CBC star Jian Ghomeshi allegedly choked and slapped her, Trailer Park Boys actress Lucy DeCoutere expressed a desire to have sex with him and a few days later penned a hand-written letter to say, “I love your hands.”

The stunning revelations at Ghomeshi’s heavily scrutinized sexual assault trial emerged Friday as the disgraced broadcaster’s defence lawyer confronted DeCoutere with numerous friendly and even fawning dispatches between the actress and the now 48-year-old Ghomeshi.

DeCoutere — one of three women complainants at Ghomeshi’s trial and the only one who can be identified — said that until Marie Henein presented it to her in court, she didn’t remember sending the email in which she expressed sexual desire for the radio star just hours after he had allegedly assaulted her.

She added that the email, and others that were racy, didn’t mean the alleged assault did not take place.

“It never happened,” Henein said firmly of the actress’s accusation.

“Oh, it happened,” DeCoutere fired back.

The intense moments came during the actress’s second day on the witness stand as Henein noted DeCoutere has repeatedly said — both on the witness stand and to police — that she had no romantic interest in Ghomeshi.

Her allegations are behind one of the four counts of sexual assault and the one count of overcoming resistance by choking. Ghomeshi has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

DeCoutere told the court that after meeting Ghomeshi at a conference in Banff in the summer of 2003, they began corresponding. She soon planned a weekend trip to Toronto, where she met him for dinner and then went back to his home.

While in his bedroom, DeCoutere testified that Ghomeshi suddenly started kissing her and then, without her consent, pushed her against a wall, choked her and slapped her three times in the face with an open hand. She said she didn’t know how to react and stayed an hour in his home to “placate the situation.”

DeCoutere also testified about subsequent interactions with Ghomeshi — including another encounter in Banff a year later, when he abruptly joined her in a karaoke session of “(Hit me) Baby One More Time.”

But Henein pointed out she only told police this week about certain details of her relationship with Ghomeshi after the alleged attack.

“Is it possible, Ms. DeCoutere, that you just seem to forget the stuff that just shows you’ve been lying?” Henein asked.

“Oh no, I’m not lying about anything,” DeCoutere said evenly, adding that she didn’t understand the importance of post-incident encounters until recently. “I’m more imprinted with the things that I found impactful, like him choking me.”

Presenting DeCoutere with email after email that she sent to Ghomeshi — including one featuring a photo of the actress simulating fellatio on a beer bottle and another asking Ghomeshi when they could meet up — Henein built up to her two big reveals.

Pacing the courtroom floor, the defence lawyer noted that the day after the alleged assault, DeCoutere sent Ghomeshi a raunchy email.

“You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to f— your brains out,” the email said.

Henein pounced.

“What happened was no sexual assault,” she said incredulously. “The next day, after thinking about it, you wanted to ‘f— his brains out.'”

DeCoutere, who remained calm throughout the day, said she didn’t remember the email.

“That still doesn’t change the fact that Mr. Ghomeshi assaulted me,” DeCoutere said. “Women can be assaulted by someone and still have positive feelings for them afterwards. That’s why there are emotionally abusive relationships that continue.”

Henein then moved on and produced a hand-written letter DeCoutere sent to Ghomeshi from Halifax, where she lives, days after her trip to Toronto.

“I want to know more, have more fun and easy times with you,” the letter said. “I am sad we didn’t spend the night together.”

The last line of the email — which Henein asked DeCoutere to read out — drew a gasp from the courtroom.

“I love your hands,” DeCoutere wrote.

When asked to explain, DeCoutere spoke slowly and deliberately.

“The last line of it is me pointing love to the very thing he used to hurt me,” she said. “I totally forgot about it. I guess I wanted to forget about it. So, this letter and any subsequent correspondence or encounters that I had with Mr. Ghomeshi changed nothing.”

A violent 23-year-old who participated in a failed home invasion on a marijuana grow-op has been sentenced to five years in prison.

During sentencing this past week, Crown prosecutor Will Burrows displayed video in a B.C. Supreme Court room in Kamloops taken from a security system at the legal marijuana operation housed amid a rural area between Falkland and Enderby.

Kenneth Evens pleaded guilty to break and enter with intent and use of a firearm to commit an offence.

Burrows said the attempt by six men to steal marijuana in late 2013 was doomed from the start because RCMP covertly installed a GPS tracking unit in one of the cars as part of an unrelated drug investigation. When the rigged car drove out of a radius of Kelowna, RCMP were alerted and scrambled to track down one of two vehicles.

While en route, they determined it was involved in a crime in progress.

The resident of the home called emergency 911 after an alarm was triggered and narrated attempts by the group to breach defences in the home. Police were immediately dispatched from rural RCMP detachments in the area.

Video of the failed raid on Yankee Flats Road showed Evens carrying a shotgun.

“Little frightens an average person than living in fear while in the sanctity of one’s own home,” remarked Justice Ian Josephson.

The men tried three doors unsuccessfully, but did manage to put an axe through a wire-fortified doorway before abandoning the break-in attempt.

Burrows asked for a six-year sentence, noting Evens was on probation at the time of the offence for an aggravated assault that left his victim brain-damaged.

In a pre-sentence report from 2011, psychiatrists said Evens used physical dominance as an “instrument” to get his way, both inside and outside prison. A report from Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre and other provincial jails said Evens, a hulking presence in the courtroom prisoner’s box, threatened guards and dominated other inmates.

In sentencing, Josephson called him an “overtly aggressive young man, deeply involved in a criminal lifestyle.”

Defence lawyer Jay Michi asked for a four-year sentence, arguing Evens can still be rehabilitated, particularly due to his young age. Evens went to school at South Kamloops secondary was not motivated by drug and alcohol abuse and was raised by two parents.

Evens has been jailed since his arrest in late 2013. With time credited, his prison term amounts to an additional 21 months.

One other man involved in the operation also pleaded guilty, while four others are scheduled to face trial.

Burke Schulz pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and received a four-year sentence.

Forty-nine-year-old Dennis Adolph died on Jan. 26. Gordon Camille, 65, has been charged with second-degree murder. Facebook photo

A murder charge has been laid as a result of Kamloops’ second homicide of 2016.

Gordon Paul Camille has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the Jan. 26 slaying of 49-year-old Dennis Adolph.

Camille appeared in Kamloops provincial court on Tuesday and will return to court on Feb. 25. He remains in custody.

Police were called to the 4 Seasons Motel in Valleyview at about 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 26 to investigate a suspicious death.

The following day, police announced they were investigating the death as a homicide.

Camille was arrested last week.

Court records show the 65-year-old Camille has a criminal record including jail sentences in 2004 and 2008 for uttering threats and breach, respectively.

Meanwhile, the investigation continues into the Jan. 22 death of a 30-year-old man on a sidewalk on Tranquille Road in North Kamloops. The victim had been with another man and a woman and was stabbed. He died seven hours later in Royal Inland Hospital.

A suspect in that homicide was arrested the following week on an unrelated charge related to breaching a court order and will return to court on Feb. 15. He has not been charged on connection to the Jan. 22 death.

Travis Johnny and Anthony Scotchman will be sentenced next month for the March 2011 murder of 23-year-old Archie LePretre, who was killed while playing basketball at Stuart Wood elementary.
KTW file photo

Travis Johnny

An alleged gangster who admitted last year to his role in a 2011 broad-daylight slaying in a downtown Kamloops schoolyard has been granted his wish to be separated in jail from members of a rival gang.

Travis Johnny did not appear in court in Kamloops Tuesday as his lawyer made an application to alter a no-contact condition.

During a hearing in B.C. Supreme Court in November, Johnny and Anthony Scotchman entered surprise guilty pleas relating to the March 2011 murder of Archie LePretre, who was beaten to death on a basketball court outside Stuart Wood elementary.

Since entering his guilty plea, Johnny, 26, has been barred from having any contact with members of Redd Alert, a First Nations street gang with which he and Scotchman, 28, are alleged to be associated.

“Unfortunately, what it means is from a classifications point of view for the institution, is he ends up in tiers where the bulk of the people are Game Tight Soldiers, and the allegation is this murder was committed by Mr. Johnny against the Game Tight Soldiers,” defence lawyer Don Campbell said in court.

Archie LePretre

“The institution is effectively forced to put Mr. Johnny in a tier where he has several incompatibles.”

It is not known in which provincial jail Johnny is being housed.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan agreed to grant Johnny’s application. He is still barred from having any contact with Scotchman.

LePretre, 23, was playing basketball in the Stuart Wood elementary schoolyard with his cousin when he was attacked by three masked assailants wielding knives and a baseball bat, police said at the time.

Mounties held a press conference at which they labelled the murder “gang-related,” saying it had been the result of a conflict between members of rival criminal organizations.

Johnny and Scotchman were initially charged with one count each of first-degree murder and commission of an offence for a criminal organization.

In exchange for their guilty pleas, the Crown dropped the criminal-organization charges. Johnny pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, while Scotchman pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Both men are scheduled to return to court next month for sentencing.

BECKETT AND LETTS

An off-duty BC Ambulance paramedic who was on the scene when Laura Letts-Beckett’s lifeless body was brought to shore in August 2010 treated the situation as “a potential crime scene,” a jury has been told.

Former New Zealand politician Peter Beckett, 59, is standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on one count of first-degree murder. Letts-Beckett, his wife, drowned in Upper Arrow Lake on Aug. 18, 2010.

Her death was initially believed to have been an accident, but a subsequent police investigation resulted in Beckett’s arrest one year later.

The Crown has alleged Beckett killed his wife out of greed, hoping to cash in on life-insurance and accidental-death benefits, as well as her teacher’s pension.

On Tuesday, paramedic Darrell Regts told jurors he was camping with his family at Shelter Bay Provincial Park — the same campground at which the Becketts were staying — in August 2010.

On Aug. 18, Regts said, a fellow camper came to his site and asked for help.

“The lady from the campsite next door said there’d been a boating accident, a drowning, and asked if I could come down to help,” Regts said.

“We found a pontoon boat beached. There were two people and the decedent on board.”

Court has previously heard Beckett and his wife were out on a Zodiac dinghy when Letts-Beckett went overboard. Beckett told police he attempted to save her, but struggled to get far enough underwater to pull her to the surface.

He said he was eventually able to drag her to shore. After unsuccessfully attempting to revive his wife, he said, he went out in his Zodiac to seek help from the couple in a nearby pontoon boat.

Jurors have been told the pontoon boat brought Letts-Beckett back to the campground.

When Regts arrived at the beach, he said Beckett was sitting at the back of the pontoon boat looking at his wife’s body.

“I got a story as to what happened,” Regts said. “I assessed the patient to see whether she was viable. She was not.”

Regts said Letts-Beckett was unconscious, not breathing and had no pulse.

He said Beckett was upset after being told his wife could not be resuscitated, but then asked a strange question.

“He asked me if there was going to be bruises on his wife,” Regts said.

“I was a little taken aback. I said there might be bruises on her back where she was dragged across the rock [after being pulled to shore].”

Regts said he noticed no bruising on Letts-Beckett’s body, but said he followed protocol as a precaution.

“We used BCAS [BC Ambulance Service] guidelines and treated it as a potential crime scene,” he said. “We made sure nobody touched the body.”

Regts said he called emergency crews and waited for police to arrive.

The next day, he said, Beckett came by his family’s campsite to say thank you.

“He asked us for an address and stuff like that,” Regts said.

“I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I walked him back to his campsite.”

Pathologist Yann Brierly performed Letts-Beckett’s autopsy in Vernon two days after she died.

In court, he said the cause of death was drowning, but noted an area of redness near Letts-Beckett’s left cheekbone.

“Pre-mortum injury can’t be ruled out,” he said. “But there are a lot of cases where we get unexplained red areas on bodies.”

Brierly also said he found no evidence — chest injuries — of CPR having been performed on Letts-Beckett’s body.

Beckett told police he performed CPR on her after pulling her from the water. Another witness also said he helped with chest compressions.

Brierly said chest injuries, including fractured ribs and red skin, are common when CPR is done “with appropriate vigour.”

Beckett and Letts-Beckett met in 1995 in New Zealand. Five years later, he moved to Westlock, Alta., to be closer to her. The couple married in 2003.

Previous witnesses have described their relationship as a rocky one. The Becketts split briefly in late 2007, but reconciled months later.

Letts-Beckett also went to police alleging physical abuse on the part of her husband, but no charges were laid.

Through her questioning, defence lawyer Donna Turko has suggested Letts-Beckett was depressed prior to her drowning.

Beckett was formerly a city councillor in Napier, New Zealand.

His trial, which began in mid-January, is expected to last three months.

Craig Bonner

A 23-year-old man who broke into the Dufferin home of the former general manager of the Kamloops Blazers and made off with valuable hockey memorabilia will spend the next five months behind bars.

Timothy Ginther pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court yesterday to one count each of break-and-enter and possession of a controlled substance.

Ginther broke into the Pacific Way home of Craig Bonner on Oct. 15 — two days after Bonner resigned as general manager of the Blazers.

Crown prosecutor Will Burrows said Bonner’s girlfriend noticed something was amiss when she arrived at his home the following day.

“There were doors and shelves open throughout the residence and items scattered all around,” Burrows said.

“She said she could tell right away there were some hockey jerseys missing.”

In addition to the missing memorabilia, Burrows said Ginther also stole booze and electronics.

Police found Ginther’s fingerprints in the home and he was arrested 10 days later.

“This type of behaviour is highly invasive,” Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand said.

“You go into somebody’s home and you take their precious belongings and they feel violated.

“They don’t feel safe.”

Ginther, who has a lengthy criminal history, was handed a 150-day jail sentence to be followed by a year-long probation term.

Bonner resigned from his role as general manager of the Blazers on Oct. 13 after seven years on the job, during which time the club amassed a record of 257-274-19-26.

He continues to live in Kamloops and is working as a professional scout for the Dallas Stars, the NHL franchise owned by Blazers’ majority owner Tom Gaglardi.

Bonner played for the Blazers between 1988 and 1993.

He was also an assistant coach with the club between the 1997 and 2001 seasons.