A mentally ill Kamloops woman who is dead set on murdering her disabled sister and then killing herself has been released from jail despite the fact experts have labelled her an extreme risk to re-offend.

Shauna Marie Hardy has been in custody since April, when she was arrested after threatening to kill her sister, who has the mental capacity of a two-year-old, and her probation officer. Hardy was placed on a probation term in February after previously threatening to kill her sister.

Based on her criminal record — one conviction for uttering threats — the Crown wasn’t seeking jail for Hardy. Court heard the 38-year-old was kept behind bars for so long because it was the only supervision available to prevent her from re-offending and to protect her sister.

Defence lawyer Michelle Stanford said health officials have rejected requests for round-the-clock supervision for Hardy because her condition — borderline personality disorder — is deemed not severe enough.

“The reality is, borderline personality disorder is a very grey area,” Stanford said.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Roy Dickey laid out his concerns about Hardy’s release, but ultimately said his hands were tied.

“The court has a significant concern, as do the psychiatrists who saw Ms. Hardy,” he said. “The indication is that she is a high risk to re-offend, committing an offence with respect to her sister. There is also a concern for Ms. Hardy herself.

“Unfortunately, the only supervision available is through incarceration and Ms. Hardy has already spent 163 days in custody.”

In a court-ordered psychiatric report, Hardy was deemed “an extreme risk.”

“Ms. Hardy indicates she still has plans to kill her sister and herself,” the report reads. “She believes both should join her dead mother.”

Dickey placed Hardy on a two-year probation term with orders barring her from contacting her sister and her former probation officer. Another term orders Hardy not to enter a 200-kilometre radius of Kamloops.

Court heard she plans to live with a relative in the Lower Mainland.

Dickey also ordered Hardy to maintain her mental health based on advice from doctors and banned her from possessing weapons. In addition, she was ordered to surrender a sample of her DNA to a national criminal database.

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A hepatitis C-positive Kamloops man who spat in the face of a police officer before telling the Mountie he had been infected with the contagious disease has been handed a nine-month prison term.

Graham Scott Penner has a history of assaulting police officers. His guilty plea in Kamloops provincial court on Monday marked the sixth time he has been convicted for the offence and his 124th conviction overall.

Court heard Penner, 45, was arrested for being drunk in public near Library Square in North Kamloops on Aug. 17. Penner had been causing a disturbance at a nearby pub earlier in the day.

When RCMP Cpl. Blair Wood went to place Penner in handcuffs, a struggle ensued.

“He spat toward Cpl. Wood with saliva hitting Cpl. Wood near his right eye, cheek and shoulder,” Crown prosecutor Andrew Duncan said.

“He said he had hep C and Cpl. Wood was now going to be infected.”

Penner was then placed in Wood’s police cruiser. A few moments later, Wood noticed Penner drinking from a mickey of vodka in the police car. Wood opened the door to take the bottle and Penner spat on him again, this time hitting the officer in the chest.

Court heard Wood has undergone testing at Royal Inland Hospital to determine whether he has been infected with hepatitis C. Those tests will continue until February.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Roy Dickey handed Penner a nine-month jail sentence — three months longer than a sentence he was given following a remarkably similar incident in 2014.

In that case, Penner spat in the face of a Kamloops RCMP constable responding to a report of a domestic disturbance, then told the officer he was contagious.

According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, hepatitis C is not known to be transmitted by coughing or sneezing, nor by skin contact by others with your body fluids. However, blood-to-blood contact from a hepatitis C-infected person can occur, albeit with a lower risk, via sharing toothbrushes, dental floss, razors, nail files or other items that could have tiny amounts of blood on them.

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A Kamloops man who refused to speak or acknowledge anyone in court on Tuesday has been released from jail after a judge said he had spent too much time behind bars.

Jeffrey Christopher Kattan stood in silence for about an hour in a Kamloops provincial court prisoner’s box before being released from custody.

Kattan had been slated to stand trial Tuesday on two charges: assault causing bodily harm for an alleged attack on his father and breach of probation by failing to report.

The Crown asked for an adjournment because Kattan’s father was ill and unable to attend court. When Kamloops provincial court Judge Chris Cleaveley learned Kattan had been in jail since February, he refused to grant the adjournment.

“You’re spending too long in jail, Mr. Kattan. . . . Do you want to get out of jail today, sir?” the judge asked Kattan, who stared blankly ahead. “Mr. Kattan should not be in jail any longer.”

Crown prosecutor Oliver Potestio conceded the amount of time Kattan had spent behind bars was longer than any jail term that would be sought if he was convicted of beating his dad.

Cleaveley had Potestio run a 30-minute trial on the breach charges, after which Kattan was convicted and sentenced to time served.

Potestio called no evidence on the assault charge and Cleaveley found him not guilty.

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A Kamloops man who pleaded guilty last week to charges stemming from a drug-related 2014 home invasion won’t spend any more time behind bars.

Steven Insua, 32, was sentenced yesterday to time served and two years of probation.

On March 16, 2014, Insua and three other men entered a York Avenue home and demanded a stash of missing drugs.

The residents of the North Kamloops home — a mother, her two adult sons and their grandmother — said they had no idea where the dope was.

Court previously heard a former tenant of the home had been a drug dealer and s believed to have moved after a $60,000 stash of drugs went missing.

Insua was arrested in November 2014 and spent 10 months in custody.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop said that was enough, placing Insua on a two-year probation term with orders he abstain from drugs and alcohol and not possess any weapons.

Insua will also have to surrender a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database.

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A Kamloops man charged with murder in connection to a fatal stabbing in January outside a North Shore sushi restaurant will have a date set next month for a five-day preliminary hearing.

Eric Charlie has been in custody since January, when he was arrested on an unrelated breach charge. In March, he was charged with second-degree murder.

The 32-year-old is accused of stabbing John Southwell, 30, in the 400-block of Tranquille Road on Jan. 22.

Employees of Hatsuki Sushi told KTW the injured man briefly stumbled into their restaurant and asked for help before being rushed by ambulance to hospital.

Charlie had been released from prison two weeks before the stabbing.

On Jan. 8, a B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced Charlie to a three-year probation term on a string of charges after he was prosecuted six times under a false name.

The Crown had been seeking a jail sentence of just under two years.

Lawyers will return to court on Oct. 17 to set a date for a five-day preliminary inquiry for Charlie on the murder charge.

Preliminary inquiries are hearings after which a provincial court judge determines whether there is enough evidence against an accused for a trial to take place in B.C. Supreme Court.

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An inmate at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre is looking for $25,000 in compensation from the provincial government for negligence he claims led to a “booby trap” set up by other prisoners.

Derek Timothy Rocco filed a notice of claim in Kamloops provincial court on Sept. 27.
Rocco, who is in protective custody behind bars, claims to have been the victim of a booby trap on July 13. In his notice of claim, he says the trap was set by general-population inmates targeting those in protective custody.

“The floor just inside of the common room door was made excessively greasy with some unknown substance,” the document reads.
“As an added insult, there was a newspaper clipping left on the window of the common room door of a rat with caption, ‘Rodents run amok.’ The slip and fall was witnessed by the unit officer, who also confirmed the excessively greasy floor.”

Rocco claims to have spent two months in a wheelchair following the incident and says he still uses a cane.
“My position is simply that this never should have been allowed to happen, especially to someone in protective custody,” he states in the notice of claim.
Rocco says he deserves $25,000 to compensate for his pain and suffering due to negligence.

The 31-year-old has been in custody since March. He is facing charges in relation to an alleged bank robbery in Salmon Arm and is set to return to court on Oct. 11.
The provincial government has two weeks to reply to Rocco’s claims once it has been served.

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A prisoner at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre has filed a $25,000 lawsuit against the provincial government, claiming his build and workout regimen can’t be supported on three squares a day.

David Grant Mack filed his lawsuit in Kamloops provincial court on Sept. 27.

“The B.C. Corrections diet is only made to support a 165- to 195-pound individual on a moderate activity level,” Mack’s notice of claim reads, noting he stands 6-foot-5, weighs 260 pounds and works a unit job at the jail.
“I work out twice a day for two hours in addition to my employment duties,” Mack’s notice of claim reads. “I am not receiving adequate nutrition and have had to live off of my canteen the last two years while incarcerated.”

Mack is seeking $25,000 for “pain and suffering related to starvation for the last two years and also having to provide my own food from canteen.”
In addition to daily meals provided by the jail, provincial prisoners can use their own money to purchase items from the canteen.

In August, Mack was handed a 15-month jail sentence for an attack on a fellow inmate.
The provincial government has two weeks to file a reply to Mack’s notice of claim.

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The province’s francophone school board is still considering whether to appeal a B.C. Supreme Court decision issued earlier this month on provision of French-language education in the province.

The Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF) and the Federation des parents francophones de Colombie Britannique (FPFCB) have said the ruling by Justice Loryl Russell gave them some victories, but included in the 1,601-page ruling are decisions the two bodies consider worrisome.

The ruling follows six years of litigation into the question of equivalency of francophone and anglophone school buildings and provision of transportation of students, among other issues.
The two groups raised concerns based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Russell ruled the province must develop a separate long-term budget for the CSF that will guarantee financing is available to meet the school board’s infrastructure needs. She also ruled the province did not fulfil its Charter obligations to provide the CSF with useful enrolment projections and must work with it to determine the number of students admissible to its schools, which includes l’ecole Collines d’Or de Kamloops in the River City.

The judge also directed the province to help the CSF negotiate lease agreement for school and awarded the board $6 million in damages for chronically underfunding the CSF transportation fund.
Issues of concern, according to a CSF letter sent to its parents, include how the judge defined substantive equivalence of French-language schools competing with English-language schools.
Also of concern is Russell’s interpretation of other Charter challenges raised in terms of determining communities’ French-language education needs.

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A former high-profile Kamloops police officer accused of trafficking cocaine while still employed by the RCMP last summer is expected to enter a plea later this week.

Randi Love did not appear in person on Monday for a brief hearing in Kamloops provincial court, at which her arraignment was set for Thursday. Her lawyer, Brad Smith, appeared on her behalf.

The 40-year-old is facing three counts of trafficking cocaine stemming from a trio of alleged incidents on separate dates in June 2015. At the time, Love was on injury leave from her job as an RCMP constable.

Police launched an investigation into Love in the weeks that followed. She submitted her resignation papers to the national police force in October 2015.

Love made headlines in 2013 when she testified at the fraud trial of her former boyfriend, then-RCMP Const. Trent Wessner, who was convicted of bilking Costco out of $400 based largely on Love’s testimony. Wessner left policing following the conviction.

In 2008, Love worked as the media-relations officer at the Kamloops RCMP detachment, acting as the de facto face of the city’s police.

To this point, Love, who is not in custody, has not appeared in person for any of her court appearances on the cocaine-trafficking charges. She is not expected to appear in person for Thursday’s arraignment hearing.

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A Kamloops man who threw a destructive fit after being kicked out of an Upper Sahali house party last year will spend 12 months on probation.

Owen Lee Coty-Buchee pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Tuesday to three counts of mischief.

Court heard the 19-year-old was asked to leave a party on Azure Place in the early-morning hours of Nov. 29, 2015. A young woman was hosting the get-together in her grandparents’ house while they were out of town — but the homeowners were watching a live stream of their security cameras on an iPad.

Once Coty-Buchee had been kicked out, he began throwing rocks at the house’s windows and at cars parked in the area. Court heard he broke a number of the home’s windows and caused damage to multiple vehicles.

Coty-Buchee has no prior criminal record. He was placed on a year-long probation term with orders he stay away from the homeowners and pay more than $1,500 in restitution.

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge has thrown out the appeal of a Kamloops hunter seeking exoneration after an unusual ruling that flowed from a protracted poaching trial.

Abe Dougan was found guilty last October of four wildlife-related offences stemming from a record-setting Dall sheep he killed in 1999. Right after Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame handed down her verdict, she stayed all charges, ruling Dougan’s Charter right to be tried in a reasonable time had been violated.

Dougan was charged 13 years after the offence. His trial began in December 2013 and Frame’s ruling was issued on October 9, 2015.

Dougan sought the judicial stays, but did not expect them to be attached to findings of guilt. His lawyer, Kevin Church, argued the findings of guilt would have a severe impact on Dougan’s livelihood. He works as a hunting guide — a vocation that requires certification from the provincial government.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan, however, ruled that because a conviction was not entered against Dougan, there was nothing to appeal.

“The difficulties are obvious,” Donegan wrote in her decision. “There are no convictions to quash in this case.”

Dougan was charged following a high-tech investigation on the part of Yukon conservation authorities that used 3D mapping software to locate a mountain range seen in the background of a picture in a big-game hunting record book.The photo of Dougan and the trophy sheep was published in the Big Game Records of B.C. record book. Dougan claimed the record-setting Dall sheep was killed in a specific area in northwest B.C. in which he was allowed to hunt.

Using 3D mapping software, investigators in the Yukon were able to find a perfect match for the photo’s backdrop 18 kilometres north of the B.C./Yukon border — an area in which he was not permitted to have been hunting.

In 2011, investigators flew a helicopter to the Yukon location they found with the mapping software. They took a photograph of the backdrop, which was entered as evidence during Dougan’s trial, to be compared to the photo from the record book.

The photos bear a number of striking similarities.

The record-setting sheep isn’t the only animal that has landed Dougan in court.

He is slated to stand trial next month in Williams Lake on three charges dating back to 2013 — hunting wildlife within six hours of being airborne, unlawful possession of dead wildlife and failure to accompany a person guided.

Last year, he was convicted in a Yukon court on charges alleging he wasted meat from sheep, caribou and moose killed in 2011 and hunted too soon after being airborne. In that instance, Dougan was leading a Wyoming hunter looking for stone sheep.

The American hunter was fined $11,500 and barred from hunting in the Yukon for 10 years. Dougan was fined $15,000 and given a 20-year ban on hunting in the Yukon.

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Charges have been laid against a Kamloops woman accused of pulling a knife on a foster mother outside a school.

Jacqueline Marie Wiersema is facing one count each of assault with a weapon and possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose. She was released from custody yesterday in Kamloops provincial court on a number of bail conditions,

The 43-year-old was arrested following an incident on Tuesday that forced a lockdown at Kamloops Christian School.

Police were called to the North Kamloops school just before 9 a.m. for a report of an incident in the parking lot.

Court heard the foster mother, a friend of Wiersema’s, was dropping off Wiersema’s children when a confrontation took place.

“Ms. Wiersema showed up at the place of schooling . . . and tried to take them [the children] when a confrontation took place,” Crown prosecutor Will Burrows said. “Ms. Wiersema brandished a scalpel.”

Defence lawyer John Hogg said Wiersema, a registered nurse, went off her mental-health medication on Monday before confronting the foster mom.

Court heard her children have been in temporary foster care while Wiersema receives mental-health treatment.

Wiersema is expected to return to court on Oct. 27. In the meantime, she is prohibited from having direct contact with her children, who remain in foster care.

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The arraignment of a former high-profile Kamloops police officer accused of trafficking cocaine while employed by the RCMP has again been delayed — this time at the request of the Crown.

Randi Love did not appear personally in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday morning for a brief hearing adjourning her arraignment to next week.

The 40-year-old is facing three counts of trafficking cocaine stemming from a trio of alleged incidents on separate dates in June 2015. At the time, Love was on injury leave from her job as an RCMP constable.

Police launched an investigation into Love’s actions in the weeks that followed. She submitted her resignation to the RCMP in October 2015.

Love made headlines in 2013 when she testified at the fraud trial of her former boyfriend. Trent Wessner, also an RCMP constable, was convicted of bilking Costco out of $400 based largely on Love’s testimony. Wessner left policing following the conviction.

In 2008, Love worked as the media-relations officer at the Kamloops RCMP detachment, acting as the de facto face of the city’s police.

Charges were laid against Love in May. To this point, she has had a lawyer appear on her behalf for each of her court dates.

Love is not in custody. She is due back in court on Oct. 13.

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In the end, the Mounties got their man and woman — signed, sealed and delivered.

On Saturday, Oct. 1, the Clearwater Canada Post office was burgled, with several items stolen, including a large variety of stamps.

On Wednesday, Oct. 5, Kamloops RCMP received a report of a woman attempting to sell stamps in Savona.

Police responded and arrested a man and woman while recovering a variety of stamps that were traced to the Clearwater post office break and enter.

Police also connected the couple’s rental car to the Tuesday, Oct. 4, attempted burglary at the Clinton government liquor store.

Cpl. Steven Schenkeveld said the woman initially gave police a false name and was eventually identified. She had an outstanding warrant for her arrest. Schenkeveld said the man also had a warrant for his arrest as he had failed to attend court earlier that morning.

Both remain in custody and are facing charges related to the crime spree that spread from Clearwater to Clinton.

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Friends and family of a Lower Mainland man killed in downtown Kamloops more than five years ago after being caught in the crossfire of a violent gang war gasped in court on Tuesday after hearing his killer texted “LMAO” after being told his deadly attack killed an innocent bystander.

Travis Johnny is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday. Lawyers spent most of the day on Tuesday arguing about how long the 27-year-old should spend behind bars.

Johnny pleaded guilty last year second-degree murder relating to the March 2011 stabbing death of Archie Lepretre, who was attacked in broad daylight while playing basketball with his cousin outside Stuart Wood elementary.

Johnny and two others — Anthony Scotchman and Chris David — attacked Lepretre, 23, and his cousin, Shaa Tremblay. Johnny, Scotchman and David were members of the Redd Alert street gang, court has heard, while Tremblay was affiliated with the rival Game Tight Soldiers gang.

Lepretre lived in Richmond, while Johnny and Scotchman were also from the Lower Mainland. They were in Kamloops to celebrate the birth of Scotchman’s child, the mother of whom was Tremblay’s sister.

“Because Scotchman was a member of the RA gang and Tremblay was a member of the GTS gang, this caused tension between the two families beyond the gang rivalry,” reads an agreed statement of facts obtained by KTW.

Court heard Johnny and other Redd Alert gangsters had been on the lookout for GTS members over a period of days prior to the attack on Lepretre. Text-message conversations obtained by police show Johnny and another Redd Alert member were “hunting” for GTS “faggots.”

The attack took place just before 5 p.m. on March 22, 2011. Court heard the three attackers entered the fenced-in Stuart Wood basketball court armed, cornering Lepretre and Tremblay.

Scotchman and David took on Tremblay while Johnny attacked Lepretre armed with a knife in each hand, “punching” the unarmed business-school graduate with the weapons before mounting him and delivering a fatal stab to his neck.

An autopsy showed Lepretre suffered a total of eight stab wounds. His cause of death was blood loss due to a severed artery in his neck.

Court heard Johnny showed no remorse in a text conversation with his then-girlfriend following Lepretre’s murder.

“Archie wasn’t even GTS n Shaw [Tremblay] walked away,” the woman texted. “F–k some real down brothers u got.”

“Lmao,” Johnny replied. “If u roll it em u go down wit em. It was just a msg to all of them. Lmao.”

“Your stupid,” the woman texted back.

“Lmao THAT’S how I roll babycakes,” Johnny replied.

(LMAO is an acronym commonly used online and in text message meaning “laughing my ass off.”)

Friends and family of Lepretre could be heard to gasp when the LMAO texts were read in the courtroom.

Crown prosecutor Peter Favell said investigators eventually seized a red SUV being driven by Scotchman and found blood on the vehicle’s weather stripping, including DNA from both Johnny and Lepretre.

Johnny’s guilty plea to second-degree murder carries an automatic sentence of life in prison, but Favell is asking for a period of parole ineligibility between 14 and 15 years. Defence lawyer Don Campbell is seeking a period of 11 to 12 years.

A decision from B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley is expected on Wednesday.

Johnny and Scotchman had been expected to stand trial in B.C. Supreme Court on charges of first-degree murder and committing an offence for a criminal organization. They entered surprise guilty pleas in November, Johnny to second-degree murder and Scotchman to manslaughter, and the Crown is no longer proceeding on the criminal-organization charges.

At a hearing in March, Scotchman was given a seven-year sentence for manslaughter.

Johnny has been in custody since December 2013. Scotchman was arrested in early 2014. David was never charged and is believed to be living in Manitoba.

If Johnny’s sentencing does not take place on Wednesday, it would be rescheduled for a later date.

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Friends and family of a Lower Mainland man killed in downtown Kamloops more than five years ago after being caught in the crossfire of a violent gang war gasped in court after hearing his killer texted “LMAO” after being told his deadly attack killed an innocent bystander.

Calling the attack that killed Archie Lepretre unprovoked and calculated, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley yesterday sentenced 27-year-old Travis Johnny to 14 years in federal prison before becoming eligible for parole.

Lepretre’s friends and family let out sighs and clapped as Dley delivered his sentence.

“This was a planned and deliberate attack done to advance the interest of organized crime,” Dley said. “It was the culmination of several days of stalking and looking for the victims.”

Johnny, 27, pleaded guilty last November to second-degree murder relating to the March 2011 stabbing death of Lepretre.

Lepretre was attacked in broad daylight while playing basketball with his cousin outside Stuart Wood elementary.

Johnny and two others — Anthony Scotchman and Chris David — attacked Lepretre, 22, and his cousin, Shaa Tremblay. Johnny, Scotchman and David were members of the Redd Alert street gang, court has heard, while Tremblay was affiliated with the rival Game Tight Soldiers gang.

Lepretre lived in Richmond, while Scotchman and David were also from the Lower Mainland. They were in Kamloops to celebrate the birth of Scotchman’s child, the mother of whom was Tremblay’s cousin.

“Because Scotchman was a member of the RA gang and Tremblay was a member of the GTS gang, this caused tension between the two families beyond the gang rivalry,” reads an agreed statement of facts obtained by KTW.

Court heard Johnny and other Redd Alert gangsters had been on the lookout for GTS members over a period of days prior to the attack on Lepretre. Text-message conversations obtained by police show Johnny and another Redd Alert member were “hunting” for GTS “faggots.”

The attack took place just before 5 p.m. on March 22, 2011. Court heard the three attackers entered the fenced-in Stuart Wood basketball court armed, cornering Lepretre and Tremblay.

Scotchman and David took on Tremblay while Johnny attacked Lepretre armed with a knife in each hand, “punching” the unarmed business-school graduate with the weapons before mounting him and delivering a fatal stab to his neck.

“Mr. Johnny had knives in both hands as he punched Mr. Lepretre,” Dley said in reading his sentence. “He laid on Mr. Lepretre and stabbed him in his neck.”

An autopsy showed Lepretre suffered a total of eight stab wounds. His cause of death was blood loss due to a severed carotid artery in his neck.

Court heard Johnny showed no remorse in a text conversation with his then-girlfriend following Lepretre’s murder.

“Archie wasn’t even GTS n Shaw [Tremblay] walked away,” the woman texted. “F–k some real down brothers u got.”

“Lmao,” Johnny replied. “If u roll it em u go down wit em. It was just a msg to all of them. Lmao.”

“Your stupid,” the woman texted back.

“Lmao THAT’S how I roll babycakes,” Johnny replied.

(LMAO is an acronym commonly used online and in text messages, meaning “laughing my ass off.”)

Friends and family of Lepretre could be heard to gasp when the LMAO texts were read in the courtroom.

Dley called the LMAO texts “chilling.”

Prior to his sentence being handed down, Johnny apologized in court, reading from a written statement, saying he thinks every day about the attack that left Lepretre dead.

Johnny also asked for forgiveness from Lepretre’s family.

Dley noted the void Lepretre’s death has left in his family, according to victim-impact statements read this week in court.

“The loss has left deep and lasting scars,” he said. “Mr. Lepretre was a happy, generous and popular member of his family. Mr. Lepretre had done nothing wrong. He was an innocent victim caught in the tension between rival gangs.”

Johnny and Scotchman had been expected to stand trial in B.C. Supreme Court on charges of first-degree murder and committing an offence for a criminal organization. They entered surprise guilty pleas last November, Johnny to second-degree murder and Scotchman to manslaughter, and the Crown is no longer proceeding on the criminal-organization charges.

At a hearing in March, Scotchman was given a seven-year sentence for manslaughter.

Johnny has been in custody since December 2013. Scotchman was arrested in early 2014. David was never charged and is believed to be living in Manitoba.

Johnny was also ordered to surrender a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database.

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A former Kamloops Mountie accused of trafficking cocaine three times last summer while still employed by the RCMP has elected to be tried by a judge and jury.

Randi Love did not appear in person as her lawyer, Brad Smith, made the election during a brief hearing on Thursday in Kamloops provincial court.

The 40-year-old is facing three counts of trafficking cocaine stemming from a trio of alleged incidents on separate dates in June 2015.

At the time, Love was on injury leave from her job as an RCMP constable.

Police launched an investigation into Love’s actions in the weeks that followed. She submitted her resignation papers to the RCMP in October 2015.

Lawyers will meet next week to set a date for a one-day preliminary inquiry. A date for Love’s trial, which is expected to take three days, would be set after that.

Love made headlines in 2013 when she testified at the fraud trial of her former boyfriend. Trent Wessner, also an RCMP constable, was convicted of bilking Costco out of $400 based largely on Love’s testimony. Wessner left policing following the conviction.

In 2008, Love worked as the media-relations officer at the Kamloops RCMP detachment, acting as the de facto face of the city’s police.

The charges against Love were laid in May. To this point, she has had a lawyer appear on her behalf for each of her court dates.

Love is not in custody. A date for her preliminary inquiry will be set on Oct. 20.

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An additional charge has been laid against a Kamloops man accused of using a baseball bat in June to beat a man into a coma.

Kristopher Teichrieb was charged with attempted murder following a confrontation with Jessie Simpson, then 18, in the early-morning hours of June 19.

A new indictment sworn this week charges Teichrieb with one count each of attempted murder and assault with a weapon.

Simpson, who turned 19 in July, has been on life support since the incident. His friends and family have said he was celebrating high school graduation on the evening of June 18 and may have been trying to find a group of his friends when he was attacked.

The alleged confrontation took place near Teichrieb’s Brocklehurst home. It’s not clear whether Simpson was on Teichrieb’s property prior to the incident, but police initially said Teichrieb had confronted someone in the driveway of his Clifford Avenue home.

The alleged altercation, however, is believed to have taken place nearby in the area of Clifford Avenue and Holt Street.

Teichrieb, who has no criminal record, was denied bail following a hearing in July. He remains in custody and is expected to appear in Kamloops provincial court on Oct. 27 for arraignment.

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A shortage of deputy sheriffs at the Kamloops Law Courts is placing judges, lawyers and accused criminals at risk, according to the spokesman for the union representing the officers.

“As far as the numbers go, we know that four or five years ago, there were 18 to 20 sheriffs at the Kamloops courthouse on average,” Dean Purdy told KTW. “Now they’re down to 13.”

Kamloops is in line to receive one new deputy sheriff out of a class of 23 recent graduates from the Justice Institute of B.C.

Purdy said that’s not enough.

“To bring in one new deputy sheriff, that’s not even keeping up with what they lost,” he said. “It’s not going to do much to deal with a vastly growing recruitment and retention problem across the province.

“A deputy sheriff makes $57,000 a year. They could go work in the mines or in other higher-paying law-enforcement positions and make more money. The government has to do something. They’re not keeping pace and they’re leaving at an alarming rate.”

The number of sheriffs in Kamloops has resulted in officials bringing in temporary fill-ins from other B.C. courthouses. Purdy said that solution makes no sense.

“They’re deputies that come from different areas,” he said. “They have to put them up in a hotel for the night, pay for meals and mileage. It’s a greater expense.”

Generally, every open courtroom has a sheriff. In Kamloops provincial court on Thursday, a crowded video courtroom usually staffed by a sheriff was left unattended for much of the morning except for occasional drop-ins from deputies.

“They know which judges are OK with that and they know which judges demand a sheriff in their courtroom,” Purdy said, noting the situation is creating a potentially unsafe environment for judges, lawyers and accused criminals.

“Right now, quite frankly, from our standpoint they are at risk,” he said. “From our perspective, every courtroom should be staffed by a deputy sheriff. It’s just a matter of time before something happens.”

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A former junior hockey player who was given a break by a judge last year after a vicious attack on his then-girlfriend has once again avoided jail — this time for a violent, steroid-induced attack that landed his father in hospital for more than a month.

Isaac Willard pleaded guilty to two counts of assault causing bodily harm stemming from an incident at his father’s home near Chase on May 2, 2015.

Court heard the 24-year-old flew into a rage after picking his dad up from a social event. Willard levelled an attack on his father that required reconstructive facial surgery and a five-week hospital stay to remedy. He also broke the nose of a female relative who attempted to intervene.

Crown prosecutor Neil Flanagan said Willard’s father still has problems with one of his eyes as a result of the attack.

“There is no doubt the injuries inflicted were very serious,” he said.

The attack seemed to happen at random, Flanagan said. People who saw Willard in the hours leading up to the incident described him as being in “good spirits,” court was told.

The apparent unprovoked assault bears a striking resemblance to an incident that took place just two weeks earlier. In that case, Willard and his then-girlfriend were walking home after watching a hockey game at a Chase pub when he snapped.

Willard grabbed her by the hair, forced her to the ground and began punching her in the face and kicking her in the ribs. A neighbour heard screaming and called 911.

His then-girlfriend was left with injuries to her nose and ear, as well as several broken teeth.

Willard pleaded guilty last December to charges stemming from that attack. He was given 75 days of house arrest and ordered to pay $6,600 in restitution to cover his ex’s dental bills.

In that case, the sentencing judge called the assault a “particularly nasty” attack.

Flanagan noted the timeline as a cause for concern.

“It is, I am sure, extremely troubling to the court that two violent incidents occurred in such a short space of time,” Flanagan said. “It can only be described as shocking conduct over a brief period of time last spring.”

Flanagan said Willard’s attack on his father would be enough to earn a jail sentence of more than a year. But, he added, Willard’s father asked the Crown to give his son a break.

“If this had happened in a fight about nothing outside a drinking establishment, I would likely be seeking a jail sentence in the range of 18 months because that’s where you start for sentences for these types of offences,” Flanagan said.

“Really, but for his father, that’s where we would be in terms of sentence.”

Defence lawyer Don Campbell said the attack, which he described as “an eruption,” was fuelled by steroids and booze.

“It does seem to be some sort of combination with the human growth hormone, anabolic steroids, all these things combined with alcohol,” he said, pitching a 90-day jail sentence to be served on weekends.

For his part, Willard apologized.

“I’m really sorry to my family, especially my father,” he said. “I had a good life before this, a good job, everything. This has really turned things around.”

Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame had harsh words for Willard, but stopped short of sending him to jail.

“Make no mistake — this was a crime that warrants a prison sentence,” she said. “There is no question it would have been appropriate. The reason you are not going to jail is because of your success to this point with your conditions.”

Willard has been on conditions since the attack on his girlfriend in April 2015. He has been wearing an ankle-monitoring bracelet since pleading guilty i10 months ago.

Instead of jail, Frame placed Willard on an 18-month conditional sentence order, the first six months of which will be served under house arrest. Once his sentence is over, he will be on probation for another year.

“Now that you know that you have this rage within you, it’s up to you to learn how to manage it,” Frame said. “As much as these steroids and other substances may have had some impact on your control over it, the rage is yours. It lives in you.”

Willard played with the Chase Heat in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League in the 2011-2012 season, amassing 16 points and 28 penalty minutes in 36 games. He also played one game for the Chase Chiefs, the Heat’s predecessor, in the 2009-2010 KIJHL season.

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