BECKETT AND LETTS

An RCMP homicide detective told a jury yesterday that he lied about his rank and position in 2011 in order to take a statement from a former New Zealand politician accused of killing his wife on a B.C. vacation the previous year.

Peter Beckett, 59, is standing trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on one count of first-degree murder. Laura 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.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Paul Dadwal held the rank of corporal at the time of his May 26, 2011, meeting with Beckett in Westlock, Alta.

Dadwal testified he exaggerated his rank to that of inspector and lied to Beckett about being the head of the RCMP “investigative standards” unit.

“I wanted Mr. Beckett to know that even though I look young, I’m a senior member of the RCMP,” he said.

Beckett had previously sent a letter to Revelstoke RCMP, complaining about the way he was treated by investigators immediately following his wife’s drowning, court heard.

Dadwal used that letter as an in to speak with Beckett. Their conversation was recorded and played in court.

“The unit that I’m in charge of is investigative standards,” he told Beckett.

“I’m not involved in this investigation. I don’t have any details of this investigation.”

Prior to the recording being played, Dadwal said he had been briefed on the investigation immediately prior to his meeting with Beckett.

In the recording, Dadwal told Beckett he was treated “unfairly” by a “rookie” Revelstoke officer.

“In my opinion, she didn’t do a good job,” he told Beckett.

“No one in the RCMP thinks you’re a bad guy. No one thinks you are a monster. No one is out to get you.”

Later in the meeting, Dadwal told Beckett he had researched him.

“I always want to know about the people I’m going to talk to,” he said.

“I’ve assessed you. There’s no secrets here — there’s no tricks.

“I know about how connected you are to politicians and what you’ve done.”

Dadwal’s act appeared to gain Beckett’s trust.

“I can tell you’re an honest man,” Beckett told the officer.

“I am an honest man,” Dadwal replied.

“I live and die by that.”

After a meandering conversation that included Beckett’s latest business venture — importing drones from China — and Dadwal’s Indian heritage, Beckett was told RCMP protocol dictated he was still a suspect.

Dadwal then worked Beckett’s Charter warning into their conversation and asked him about the drowning.

Beckett told Dadwal a story similar to the one he told investigators immediately following the drowning, but with three glaring inconsistencies.

In his first statement, Beckett said his wife was screaming and panicking in the water after going overboard. He told Dadwal, however, that all he heard was a splash.

Beckett’s initial story was that the umbrella his wife was holding went off the boat and into the water. When speaking with Dadwal, he said the umbrella landed on the boat.

Finally, in his first statement, Beckett said he grabbed his wife by the hand to pull her to shore. He told Dadwal he wrapped his legs around her.

The conversation between Beckett and Dadwal lasted nearly two hours and ended with a number of suggestions from Beckett as to how the RCMP could improve its image.

Before leaving, Dadwal reiterated to Beckett his belief in his story.

“Peter, I believe you,” he said.

“I have no further questions. I believe you from the bottom of my heart.”

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.

A “hot-headed” Kamloops salsa thief who stole a jar of spicy dip in a bid to spend the night in the drunk tank is back on the streets after nearly three weeks behind bars.

Rodney Brignall, 43, pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday to theft under $5,000 and failing to comply with probation.

Crown prosecutor Camille Cook said police were called to the Robo Esso on Tranquille Road in North Kamloops at about 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 23 after an employee reported a theft.

Police showed up a few minutes later and found Brignall sitting outside the store.

“Mr. Brignall was sitting on the ground smoking a cigarette and clearly visible with him was a glass jar of salsa,” Cook said. “He said he had stolen the salsa and wanted to go to jail.”

Brignall had not opened the jar, which was worth $3.99.

“He was cold, didn’t have anywhere to stay and his intention was to cause something that would make police pick him up,”  defence lawyer Jay Michi said.

“It was a hot-headed decision — not a very well thought-out one.”

Brignall, who has 25 property-related convictions on his record, said he just wanted a warm place to sleep.

“It was freezing,” he said. “I asked the cop if he would just throw me in the drunk tank, just for a place to stay. They said no.”

Bignall was. however, arrested for theft and taken to the RCMP’s cells on Battle Street.

Brignall spent 19 days behind bars before Thursday’s hearing.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand sentenced Brignall to time served.

A suspect has been arrested in connection to a Feb. 7 shooting that injured three people in the Shuswap.

Richard Allen Williams was arrested on Thursday and made his first appearance in Kamloops provincial court on Friday afternoon.

Evidence presented during the brief hearing is bound by a court-ordered publication ban.

Williams, 59, is facing a raft of serious charges including attempted murder, discharging a firearm with the intent to wound, maim or disfigure, assault with a firearm, aggravated assault and break and enter.

Court documents identify only one victim, Clayton Hill. Further charges are expected to be laid.

After the shooting, which occurred in Celista, police said three men were sent to hospital. Two were reported to be in critical condition and one had minor injuries.

Williams is due back in court on Feb. 18. He remains in custody.

“We can confirm that this incident was not a random occurrence and that the individuals involved were known to each other,” Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said earlier this week. “We are always concerned for the safety of the general public when incidents such as this occur in our communities; however, as is in many cases such as this one, we can state that the violence seen was not a random act direct at random people.”

The brains behind an elaborate Kamloops cocaine-dealing network that was busted by police in 2012 has been handed a five-year jail sentence.

Richard Arthur Crawford pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday to one count of conspiring to traffic cocaine.

Court heard the 34-year-old was in charge of a “business” that profited off of drug addicts.

Federal Crown prosecutor John Walker said Crawford employed a manager and a network of dial-a-dope dealers.

“Mr. Crawford’s involvement was for profit, and his involvement was lengthy,” Walker said, noting police wiretaps revealed Crawford boasting of having operated the network for eight years.

Police launched an investigation into Crawford, who went by the name “Dicky” on the wiretaps, in February 2012.

Between April and October of that year, undercover officers made 20 buys from Crawford’s dealers, the largest being $5,000 for three ounces.

“This was his way of life,” Walker said.

“This was his business interest, his income.

“Mr. Crawford was profiting off of those who suffer from cocaine addiction.”

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop went along with a joint submission from Crown and defence recommending a five-year prison sentence for Crawford, along with a 10-year firearms ban and an order that he submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database.

Crawford and seven other men — including his supplier, his manager and dealers — were charged in 2013 with a range of offences.

At the time, police said the network had ties to the notorious United Nations gang.

Jean-Claude Auger, the network’s supplier, was handed a four-year jail sentence last year after pleading guilty.

Crawford’s second-in-command, manager Steven Lloyd Currie, is expected to plead guilty in court tomorrow.

All but one of Crawford’s dealers have pleaded guilty.

Christopher William Bayer is wanted on a warrant relating to his outstanding charges.

BECKETT AND LETTS

A former New Zealand politician accused of drowning his wife while on vacation in B.C. in 2010 told police his first instinct when he heard her body splash into a Revelstoke-area lake was to grab his fishing rod.

The B.C. Supreme Court jury in Kamloops tasked with deciding Peter Beckett’s fate watched a 2.5-hour videotaped re-enactment on Tuesday, taped with Beckett on Upper Arrow Lake 10 months after his wife’s death.

Beckett, 59, is charged with first-degree murder in connection to the Aug. 18, 2010, drowning of Laura Letts-Beckett.

Her death, on Upper Arrow Lake, 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.

Court heard Beckett was flown from Alberta to Revelstoke in an RCMP jet on June 10, 2011. He was then driven to Shelter Bay, on Upper Arrow Lake, where investigators took him on a boat and had him painstakingly go over his version of events.

Beckett has claimed his wife fell off of their Zodiac dinghy. He has said he had his back to her when she fell.

Beckett said he could not get far enough underwater to rescue his wife, so he swam to shore, retrieved a rock and swam back out to her, where he used the stone to sink below the surface of the water and pull Letts-Beckett to shore.

In the video, Beckett called the rock a “negative buoyancy compensator.”

“My buoyancy is incredible,” he said. “I’m an incredibly, positively buoyant person.”

Later, he suggested divine intervention helped him find the rock.

“I knew that I only had one chance to get the rock right,” he said. “This rock just appeared to me, like a spiritual thing.”

In the video, Beckett told investigators his first instinct when he heard the splash of his wife’s body hitting the water was to grab his fishing rod — something he called “fisherman’s instinct.”

“When you hear a splash and you’re a fisherman, and you’re tuned into fishing, you think maybe a big one’s hit,” he said.

“I didn’t think she had fallen over. That’s not initially what came into my head.”

Investigators pressed Beckett about the splash.

“It sounded like somebody jumping into the water,” he said.

“I mean, that’s what it sounded like. If you jumped over now, it sounded like that. I thought I’d hit something or a big fish had jumped, which happens often on this lake.”

In the video, Beckett referred repeatedly to the detective driving the police boat as “skipper.”

He also offered investigators lessons on the feeding habits of trout and the differences between igneous versus sedimentary rocks.

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 rocky. 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.

A former kickboxer who at one time held a provincial title may have a post-concussion syndrome that leads him into violent behaviour, his defence lawyer said Tuesday.

Kyle Walsh, 27, was sentenced to one year and three months in jail for assault causing bodily injury and assault with a weapon, one of the incidents involved being a jailhouse fight.

He has seven previous convictions for assault, including aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop agreed with a joint submission from the Crown and defence lawyer Jay Michi for the 15-month sentence.

“You’ve got a long record for someone who is 27 years,” Hyslop warned. “What’s troubling is they’re for assault and you’ve got two more now. Next time you’ll be facing federal time (minimum two-year sentence).”

Prosecutor Neil Flanagan detailed two violent incidents, the first in December 2014 and the second in August of last year.

In the first assault, Flanagan said Walsh picked up acquaintance James Tremblay on the pretext of helping a friend move. But Tremblay began asking questions as the pair drove away from Kamloops and into Lac Du Bois Provincial Park.

That’s when Walsh stopped the car and accused Tremblay of stealing something from a friend.

Flanagan said Walsh grabbed a baton and began beating Tremblay, finishing by pepper spraying him in the face. Tremblay ran and hid, later walking back into the city for help.

In the second incident, Walsh was caught on video at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre attacking another inmate with a pen and bashing him with a video-game console.

Neither man was seriously injured in Walsh’s assaults.

Walsh has been sentenced in past for a jailhouse beating.

Michi said Walsh is a red seal ironworker with substance-abuse problems and a tendency to associate with “negative peers.”

“He also suspects, and I suspect, he’s an individual who has some of these problems as a result of post-concussive syndrome from years of kickboxing,” Michi said, noting Walsh was an active kickboxer as a youth and won a provincial title.

Flanagan said the sentence recommended by Crown is lighter than normal because Walsh pleaded guilty. If he were to go to trial, the Crown was unsure if Tremblay would show up as a witness.

With time credited for pre-sentence custody, Walsh’s sentence amounts to about seven months of new time in jail.

MARK LINDSAY

The son of a former Edmonton police chief who admitted in a Kamloops courtroom to murdering his ex-girlfriend, attacking an undercover Mountie and, later, stabbing his cellmate in the eye with a pen is on trial this week.

Mark Lindsay’s murder trial began Tuesday in Red Deer.

The 28-year-old is charged with second-degree murder in the 2011 slaying of Dana Turner.

In 2012, a Kamloops judge found Lindsay not criminally responsible by way of a mental disorder for the attack on the undercover officer and the cellmate.

Lindsay is the son of former Edmonton police chief John Lindsay.

In August 2011, Lindsay was released from an Edmonton jail after serving a 50-day sentence for stabbing Turner in the head.

Within days of his release from custody, Turner vanished. Her body was found months later in a farmer’s field outside Red Deer.

Prior to the body being located, police launched a Mr. Big sting targeting Lindsay. He was on his first out-of-town trip with undercover Mounties posing as gangsters — a drive from an Edmonton suburb to Kamloops to drop off a trailer containing two ATVs — when he attacked the officer during a stop at a Barriere gas station.

Lindsay was arrested by Kamloops RCMP a short time later.

While in Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre awaiting trial, Lindsay stabbed his cellmate twice in the eye — once with a pen and once with a pencil — after a dispute during a game of Scrabble.

In 2012, a B.C. Supreme Court judge in Kamloops found Lindsay not criminally responsible for the attack on the Mountie and the attack on the cellmate.

During his trial in Kamloops, Lindsay admitted to both attacks and to the murder of Turner.

His trial in Alberta is slated to run until Feb. 26.

By Paul Cowley
Red Deer Advocate

Mark Lindsay

Mark Damien Lindsay has admitted to the gruesome killing of Dana Turner in 2011.

The trial began in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench on Tuesday to determine whether the Edmonton man, who suffers mental-health issues, should be held criminally responsible.

Lindsay, 29, is charged with second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and interfering with human remains.

Lindsay initially admitted to killing Turner while he was on trial in Kamloops in 2012 for attacking an undercover Mountie in Barriere while the target in  an undercover operation and for stabbing an inmate at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre while awaiting trial.

A Kamloops judge found Lindsay not criminally responsible by way of a mental disorder for the attack on the undercover officer and the cellmate.

In an agreed statement of facts read by Crown prosecutor Ed Ring in Red Deer Tuesday, the court heard that Lindsay contacted Turner, with whom he had an on-again, off-again relationship, shortly after he was released from prison on Aug. 12, 2011.

He had served a 50-day sentence for stabbing Turner in the head with a paring knife in June, 2011.

Lindsay contacted Turner, 31, a day after his release and by Aug. 14 they had met up again, booking a room at an Edmonton hotel.

The two were in her rental car on the morning of Aug. 15 when he stabbed her with a pencil, first in one eye, then the other. He then strangled her with his shoelaces.

Lindsay drove to a construction site where he ran over her body twice to make sure she was dead.

Lindsay, who is the adopted son of former Edmonton police chief John Lindsay, later drove south and disposed of Turner’s body off an oil lease road about eight km west of Innisfail. The remains of the mother of three boys were not found until October.

At the scene was found a work glove that had traces of Turner’s and Lindsay’s DNA.

Turner’s mother Wendy Yurko was among about a dozen friends and family of the victim who came to court.

Yurko said the justice system failed her daughter.

“My daughter, if she had received justice the first time he drove a knife into her head, he wouldn’t have been released in 50 days, giving us four hours notice, and my daughter would now be alive,” she said outside court.

“The only thing that can possibly happen is that someone might be able to stop him from doing this to someone else.”

Yurko said the criminal justice system offers justice only to criminals, not their victims.

She believes Lindsay deserves to die the same way he daughter did. At the very least, given Canada has no capital punishment, he should be locked up for as long as he lives.

Someone as dangerous as Lindsay should never have been released from Edmonton’s Alberta Hospital, where he was being treated for his mental problems, in the first place, she said.

It was there he first met Turner, who suffered from manic depression.

Lindsay was arrested for Turner’s murder in B.C. in 2012, where he had been on trial for two charges of aggravated assault. He would be found not criminally responsible of those charges by reason of mental disorder.

He was arrested in Port Coquitlam, B.C., where he was being treated in the Forensic Psychiatry Hospital.

Lindsay showed little emotion as the fact of the case were read into the record. He mostly leaned his back on the wall in the court dock with his eyes closed.

In the morning, the lead investigator produced a detailed reconstruction of Turner’s time with Lindsay using receipts and closed-circuit video images from convenience stores and the hotel.

Two interviews with police were played in court. The first, about 45 minutes long, happened on Aug. 29, 2011 in Edmonton, early into the investigation. He denies killing her during the talk with plainclothes police officers in an unmarked car.

A more-than five-hour video interview with Lindsay on March 16, 2012, after he was charged with Turner’s death was shown in part and will be completed today.

pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com

A defence lawyer representing the manager of a local cocaine ring argued Wednesday his client should not go to jail.

The sentencing hearing for Steven Lloyd Currie marks the final chapter in a successful RCMP undercover operation that began in early 2012 and resulted in the arrest and conviction of seven of eight men involved.

The eighth, Christopher Bayer, is wanted on an arrest warrant.

Earlier this week, Richard Crawford — the overall leader of the ring selling powdered cocaine in $50 and $100 quantities — was sentence to five years in prison.

The sentence was a joint submission from defence and Crown.

Four of five street-level drug couriers who drove around Kamloops in a designated “work car” pleaded guilty to trafficking charges, each receiving some form of a conditional-sentence order with house arrest and terms of probation.

The cocaine wholesaler, Jean-Claude Auger, received a four-year prison sentence, despite undertaking a public rehabilitation that included a series of videos outlining his actions and changed life.

Defence lawyer Jordan Watt argued Currie — who has no criminal record — should also receive a conditional sentence order. Prosecutor John Walker recommended a four-year prison term. That gap between recommended sentences is unusually large.

Because the crime occurred before a tougher sentencing law introduced by the then-Conservative government, there is no mandatory prison term.

Currie, 30, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, a higher-level charge than simple trafficking.

Beginning in early 2012, police obtained a series of judicial approvals allowing them to wiretap the phones of Currie and Crawford, as well as a dial-a-dope line manned by the five drivers.

Police also placed a tracking device on Currie’s BMW.

Through those texts and phone calls, they learned Currie acted as a go-between with Auger and the five drivers, collecting cocaine from the wholesaler in return for cash and reloading drivers with product.

“You can see from the beginning Mr. Currie’s role in making sure drivers have product,” Walker told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop.

“He has leadership in the sense drivers report at the end of the shift as to how much they sold,”

In addition to having access to all the texts among couriers, Currie and Crawford, police also tailed some of the suspects and made drug buys as part of a sting.

Walker read a series of texts highlighting the kind of niggling complaints familiar to any small business.

Those included drivers complaining about a rude slacker on staff and asking Crawford, the drug ring’s owner, to get the manager, Currie, off their backs.

Currie, in turn, complained drivers were late with payment and for work, while he had no time off.

There was also constant banter between the manager and drug-ring leader that business was slow, with Crawford complaining he was behind on his mortgage payment and needed more business.

The sentencing hearing is scheduled to continue Thursday.

The man convicted of murdering two young girls, their parents and grandparents more than three decades ago in Wells Gray Provincial Park in Clearwater has waived his right to an upcoming parole hearing — and it will be 2021 before he can apply again.

David Ennis, who has changed his name from David Shearing since the August 1982 murders, was due for a parole hearing in August.

A spokeswoman for the Johnson and Bentley families said relatives of the victims are relieved at the cancellation and are pleased that new federal rules mean Ennis can’t apply for another hearing for five years.

Tammy Arishenkoff said when parole hearings came every two years, the family could only relax for a short time between applications.

Ennis pleaded guilty to six counts of second-degree murder in 1984 for the murders of 13-year-old Janet and 11-year-old Karen Johnson, their parents, Jackie and Bob Johnson of Westbank, and Jackie’s parents, Edith and George Bentley of Port Coquitlam.

The six were camping in the park when they were murdered by Ennis.

He kept the two girls alive for several days after killing the adults, before slaying them and burning all six bodies in a remote area of the park.

— Canadian Press

A B.C. Supreme Court justice will decide whether the manager of a cocaine ring that may have operated in Kamloops for eight or nine years before it was raided by RCMP should go to jail or be given a lengthy period of house arrest.

Lawyers for the defence and Crown completed arguments Thursday in the sentencing hearing of Steven Lloyd Currie for conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.

It is the near-conclusion of a successful RCMP operation in 2012 that used undercover agents and wiretaps to gather information on the eight men charged.

The cocaine ring that operated noon to midnight on weekdays and until later in the early morning hours on weekends had dial-a-dope line and dedicated work car, staffed by five lower-level driver-dealers.

Four of those couriers received some form of house arrest for trafficking, while the fifth is wanted on a warrant.

The operation’s owner, Richard Crawford, received a five-year prison term earlier this week.

The wholesale supplier, Jean-Claude Auger was sentenced to four years in prison for his role. When police raided his home, they found cocaine and more than $130,000 hidden in the walls of his home.

Defence lawyer Jordan Watt argued for a two-year period of house arrest followed by three years of probation.

“This is not an individual or set of circumstances where it’s necessary to separate him from society,” Watt said.

“Mr. Currie doesn’t pose a risk to society.”

Currie, 30, attended Thompson Rivers University for trades training and has a successful work history.

He has no criminal record and now lives in Ontario with his parents.

Watt said Currie fell into the operation when he returned to Kamloops from Ontario. Watt said his client’s involvement was brief, only a fraction of what some evidence shows was a cocaine ring that operated for almost a decade.

The Crown entered evidence into the sentencing hearing showing Currie managed the drivers and reloaded them with cocaine purchased from Auger.

He collected money and passed that on to Crawford.

Crown prosecutor John Walker recommended a four-year prison term.

Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop is expected to soon reach a decision.

While Watt emphasized Currie has been a productive citizen, with the case his only intersection with the law, the Crown said that “cuts both ways.

“It’s entirely obvious in the facts that, like many other young men, he chose the path of easy money,” Walker said.

“It’s a choice.”

The prosecutor said dial-a-dope operations are efficient at spreading cocaine throughout the community, often leading to drug-addiction and ruined lives.

A B.C. Supreme Court justice ruled Friday the “manager” of a Kamloops cocaine ring will not go jail and will instead serve two years of house arrest, followed by probation.

Steven Currie pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine, a high-level drug charge.

While the Crown asked for a four-year jail term, Justice Hope Hyslop sided with defence lawyer Jordan Watt, who argued a conditional sentence order, so-called “jail in the community,” is a tough penalty that will deter others from serious drug crime.

Currie ran the day-to-day operations of a dial-a-dope operation in Kamloops in 2012, collecting money at the end of the night and reloading drivers with product. Five driver-dealers rotated shifts selling small amounts of powdered cocaine and delivering it throughout the city in a dedicated work car.

They regularly collected thousands of dollars in revenues.

Through wiretapping phones, search warrants and undercover buys, RCMP dissected the workings of the operation headed by Richard Crawford.

By opting not to send Currie to jail, Hyslop handed him a sentence similar to the lowest-level cocaine delivery drivers, all of whom received some form of house arrest. Crawford was given a five-year jail term, while the cocaine wholesaler to the ring, Jean Claude Auger, received a four-year sentence.

The defence argued conditional sentences have been allowed to slip into lighter penalties than originally designed when legislation was introduced in the 1990s. Watt argued for a strict conditional sentence over two years that would allow Currie little freedom to leave his parents’ home in Ontario, other than to work.

For the first six months of the three-year probation that will follow, he will be under an evening curfew.

A hearing is set for April 11 to determine whether delays in criminal proceedings should overturn the conviction of a Shuswap Lake boater who crashed into a houseboat, killing its pilot.

In October, Leon Reinbrecht was found guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops of criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing bodily harm for his actions on July 3, 2010.

Reinbrecht’s speedboat on Shuswap Lake ran into a houseboat piloted by Ken Brown, killing Brown and injuring a number of passengers. The speedboat ended up inside the houseboat.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan found Reinbrecht guilty on both counts, finding he was travelling too fast and recklessly in the moments before he struck Brown’s houseboat in the dark.

Defence lawyers working for Reinbrecht earlier filed a challenge alleging delays in legal proceedings caused by the Crown breached Reinbrecht’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It took 17 months for charges to be laid against Reinbrecht and there were a number of delays before the trial.

The hearing was originally set for March, but the defence successfully applied for an adjournment to give more time for preparation.

Peter Beckett is charged with murdering his wife on Upper Arrow Lake near Revelstoke in 2010. This video, from which the photo above was taken, was played during his murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops. It shows Beckett accompany police to the lake so he could show officers what he said happened that day. The trip to the lake took place before Beckett was charged with murder.

Kamloops This Week has been granted an order in B.C. Supreme Court to publish video footage of a police re-enactment video in the case of a former New Zealand politician now standing trial for first-degree murder.

KTW succeeded in applying for access to the video, which was played for jurors in the Peter Beckett trial last week.

Beckett, 59, is accused of drowning his wife while on vacation at a Revelstoke-area lake in 2010.

In the video, filmed before his arrest in 2011, Beckett is taken by police to Upper Arrow Lake, where he is put on a boat with three detectives. Beckett details his version of the events of his wife’s drowning multiple times.

Laura Letts-Beckett drowned in the lake on Aug. 18, 2010. Her death was initially believed to be accidental, but Beckett was charged one year later.

The Crown has alleged Letts-Beckett was killed out of greed, saying Beckett’s motive was financial. Prosecutor Sarah Firestone has told jurors Beckett stood to gain a significant amount of money in life-insurance and accidental-death benefits, as well as Letts-Beckett’s schoolteacher’s pension.

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.

The trial is slated to resume on Feb. 29.

The Federal Court of Canada has struck down regulations requiring licensed medical-marijuana users to buy from Ottawa-approved growers, giving people the green light to continue growing at home.

The ruling is suspended for six months, but the four B.C. residents who launched the court challenge had their growing licences protected under an earlier interim order.

Thousands of people in B.C. and across Canada received licences to either grow pot themselves or designate someone else to do it before the Conservative government attempted to restrict production to large commercial growers who sent it by mail.

With the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau government intent on legalizing recreational marijuana use, Kirk Tousaw, a lawyer for the four, said the latest ruling should “once and for all end the stigmatization and criminalization” for medical users and their providers.

“And, in addition, all pending criminal cases against medical cannabis producers, patients, growers and dispensaries should be immediately terminated,” Tousaw told CTV Wednesday. “There is absolutely no reason in this day and age to continue to prosecute people for helping people improve their quality of life with medical cannabis.”

Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan ruled that preventing people from growing marijuana for medical purposes violates section seven of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees “the right to life, liberty and security of the person.”

The court challenge was brought by:

• Neil Allard, 61, of Nanaimo, a former counsellor for Veterans Affairs Canada until he was granted medical retirement in 1999 due to chronic fatigue syndrome. He started growing his own marijuana after finding he was “sensitive to pharmaceutical medication,” according to court documents.

• Tanya Beemish and David Hebert, a couple from Surrey ages 29 and 34. Beemish suffers from type 1 diabetes and gastroparesis, and smokes or vaporizes two to 10 grams of marijuana a day to relieve nausea, pain, lack of appetite and insomnia. Hebert received a Health Canada licence to be her designated grower.

• Shawn Davey of Abbotsford, 39, suffered a brain injury in a motor-vehicle accident and receives a federal disability pension. He held licences to grow for himself and as a designated grower for others, authorizing him to produce 122 plants indoors and store 5,490 grams at the site of production.

Former Kamloops mayoral candidate Brian Alexander entered court a free man on Friday but left in handcuffs, led by a deputy sheriff to a jail cell.

The 45-year-old chimney sweep was sentenced to a week behind bars after being found in contempt of court.

Alexander subscribes to a school of thought called Freemen-on-the-Land. Referred to by justice officials as “organized pseudo-legal commercial argument litigants,” Freemen believe laws can only be applied with consent.

BRIAN ALEXANDER

Throughout his trial and sentencing, Alexander, who was not represented by a lawyer, interrupted proceedings to make Freemen arguments about common law, consent and contracts.

Alexander’s contempt finding stemmed from an incident during his trial last year on one count each of obstructing a peace officer and driving while prohibited.

During the trial, Alexander turned his back on Kamloops provincial court Judge Roy Dickey and refused to turn around.

Alexander was taken into custody at the time and released later in the day, but not before telling Dickey he did not recognize him or the court.

At the conclusion of the trial, Alexander was found guilty of driving while prohibited and acquitted on the obstruction charge.

In addition to the seven-day jail sentence for contempt, Dickey handed Alexander the mandatory minimum for a driving while prohibited conviction, which is a $500 fine and a one-year driving ban.

Alexander ran unsuccessfully for mayor in Kamloops’ civic elections in 2008 and 2011. He also sought the Kamloops-South Thompson seat in B.C.’s legislature in the 2013 provincial election.

A struggling crystal meth addict has been sentenced to 15 more days in prison for breach of court orders and possession of a tiny amount of the drug while at a recovery centre.

Daniel Myles pleaded guilty Thursday to several breaches and to possession of crystal meth after several incidents in the past six months.

On one occasion, Myles admitted to staff at Vision Quest Recovery Centre outside Logan Lake that he had been absent for several hours because he was drinking at a pub. In another incident, an ambulance was called to help Myles when he fell and struck his head while high on crystal meth while in recovery.

Authorities also found a tiny amount of the drug among his possessions at the recovery centre.

In addition to the jail sentence, Myles faces other unresolved charges ,including driving while prohibited and possessing a restricted weapon.

“Mr. Myles is still very much in the grip of a crystal-meth addiction,” defence lawyer Eric Rines said.

Rines said Vision Quest will accept Myles again for treatment once he is released from jail, but he will be sent to a more secure facility in the Lower Mainland. Rines said operators in Logan Lake have struggled with security problems.

Roy Fraser enters the Kamloops Law Courts during his trial in 2013. The Knouff Lake man murdered Damien Marks and Kenneth Yaretz Jr. and was sentenced to a mandatory 25-year term for the murder of Marks and a 10-year concurrent term for the slaying of Yaretz.
KTW file photo

Convicted murderer Roy Fraser has lost an appeal of his first- and second-degree murder convictions for two slayings in Knouff Lake.

In a unanimous decision, the B.C. Court of Appeal has rejected Fraser’s arguments that the trial judge made several legal errors.

The appeal court ruling upholds the original charge to the jury, finding no grounds for a defence submission that the trial judge should have ordered acquittal on the first-degree murder charge.

Instead, B.C.’s top court noted evidence allowed the jury to infer Fraser deliberately shot 31-year-old Damien Marks in 2009 as Marks escaped after Fraser shot another man.

The bodies of Marks and Independent Soldiers gang associate Ken Yaretz Jr., were found in a shallow grave on Fraser’s rural property northeast of Kamloops, one month after they disappeared.

In 2013, Fraser received a mandatory 25-year term for the murder of Marks and a 10-year concurrent term for the slaying of Yaretz.

— The Canadian Press

BECKETT AND LETTS

A stash of diamonds hidden in a luxury car, a secret cache of dynamite bound for the black market, a plot hatched behind bars to kill a police officer and other witnesses and a career criminal turned police agent for pay.

Those are some of the details jurors heard as Peter Beckett’s trial on one count of first-degree murder resumed Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops after a one-week break.

The 59-year-old former New Zealand politician is accused of killing his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, who died in 2010.

Letts-Beckett drowned in Upper Arrow Lake near Revelstoke on Aug. 18, 2010. Her death was initially believed to be accidental, but Beckett was charged one year later.

The Crown has alleged Letts-Beckett was killed out of greed, saying Beckett’s motive was financial.

Prosecutor Sarah Firestone has told jurors Beckett stood to gain a significant amount of money in life-insurance and accidental-death benefits, as well as Letts-Beckett’s schoolteacher’s pension.

Taking the stand Monday, a former cellmate of Beckett’s said the Kiwi described his version of events shortly after they first met in June 2012.

“He said his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, fell off the Zodiac they were on in the lake and basically sunk,” said the informant, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

“He said that he didn’t notice she had fell off and, by the time he did, he could see her flailing underwater.”

“I told him, I’m sorry for my language, but I said, ‘If that’s your version, you’re f—ed,” the informant testified.

The informant said when he questioned how Beckett could not notice his wife falling off a small inflatable boat, the accused’s story began to change.

“Then he said that she just kind of slowly lowered herself in, kind of stealth into the water,” the informant said. “Basically like a suicide.”

The informant told jurors he and Beckett became close over time.

“We established a pretty tight relationship,” he said. “He knew I was being released soon from prison. I felt like I was being groomed, actually. There were a lot of conversations around a large amount of money, I think in the $4.5-million range, if things were handled properly on the street.”

The informant said Beckett gave him a list of names of people to kill. On it was the lead RCMP investigator, Letts-Beckett’s parents, a cousin and a lawyer.

“I went along with it,” the informant said. “It developed to where I was to take out witnesses for him upon my release — and by take out, I mean kill witnesses.”

The informant said he eventually decided to contact police, largely because his sister was murdered in 2000.

“Once I started finding out more about his case, something happened to me and I started thinking about doing something right for once,” he said.

“I know the effect the murder of my sister had on me and my family. Even as a hardened, seasoned criminal, something told me that Laura and her family and these potential targets, something told me that I had to do something to prevent this from happening. For the first time in my life, I gave the RCMP information.”

The informant said he wrote a letter to police. A few days later, he was escorted to a nearby RCMP detachment to meet with detectives.

The investigators told the informant to keep detailed notes of his interactions with Beckett. They also had him sign a contract, court heard, that saw him work as an agent in exchange for $10,000.

The informant said Beckett’s conspiracy continued to unfold in jail. The two men developed an alpha-numeric code to discuss targets on the phone, court heard, and Beckett told him places he could find money and weapons.

“He told me in his Jaguar, if I needed some money, he had diamonds that were stashed in his Jaguar,” the informant said. “They were stashed in the windshield-wiper reservoir.”

The informant said Beckett drew him a map showing where the Letts family lived and where he could find a stash of dynamite, which would be used as a weapon and to sell on the black market to finance additional murders.

The informant appeared nervous in his testimony, rocking back and forth in the witness dock. He said he has been in segregation in jail since 2013 because of his involvement with police.

“Given my background and history, my record, that’s probably the worst thing someone of my calibre could do, to say the least,” he said. “It’s against every con code known to man.

“Inside, in a prison setting, it’s the worst thing you can do. There’s absolutely nothing worse. It’s against every code there is. That’s universal — that’s in every prison.”

The informant, who is serving a three-year prison sentence, is expected to return to the witness stand Tuesday.

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 up 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 began in mid-January and is expected to last three months.