RCMP Watch

Mountie sentence appealed
By KEVIN MARTIN, CALGARY SUN

The judge who spared former RCMP Const. Mike Ferguson a jail term for shooting dead a prisoner misinterpreted, or ignored key facts, a prosecutor said this morning.

Crown lawyer Rick Saull said Ferguson should not have been given a conditional sentence for the manslaughter of Darren Varley.

Saull told a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel the sentence Justice Ged Hawco handed Ferguson in October, 2004, was clearly inappropriate.

“First of all, the sentence is demonstrably unfit and the trial judge … misinterpreted, or ignored certain facts,” Saull said.

“By failing to pay heed to certain key facts and by misinterpreting others, the trial judge was not in the position to assess an appropriate sentence,” said Saull.

Hawco handed Ferguson a 17-month community term in December, 2004, a sentence the former Mountie completed earlier this month.

Ferguson, a 19-year veteran of the national police force shot and killed Varley on Oct. 3, 1999, as he was placing the intoxicated victim in cells at the Pincher Creek detachment.

He was charged with murder and two trials ended in hung juries before a third hearing resulted in a guilty verdict to manslaughter.

Hawco ruled jurors must have found instinct and training led Ferguson to fire a second bullet into Varley’s head after felling the victim with a shot to the stomach.

But Saull told the appeal court there was noting in RCMP policy requiring officers to shoot twice.

His arguments are continuing.