Lindsay Kines (Vancouver Sun) – The RCMP’s internal review of the Robert Pickton serial killer case concluded that the officers involved in the investigation would change little if they had to do things over again, according to a copy of the 2002 report obtained by Postmedia News.
The findings of the 27-page report stand in stark contrast to the Vancouver police department’s 408-page review, which said that a Coquitlam RCMPled investigation could have caught Pickton years earlier and prevented the deaths of more than a dozen women.
The RCMP review, which was done to prepare for lawsuits filed by the women’s families, found few problems with the Pickton investigation.
The report states that the RCMP devoted adequate resources to the case, that working relationships with other police agencies were excellent, and that the force attempted to exhaust all investigative avenues.
“Based on our experience and from the interviews conducted, it is suffice to say nothing would have changed dramatically if those involved had to do it over again,” states the report, which is backed by several hundred pages of transcribed interviews.
The review was conducted by two outside RCMP major crime officers from Alberta, Insp. Bob Williams and Staff Sgt. Kevin Simmill. A heavily censored copy of their report was released to Postmedia News this week under the federal Access to Information Act.
The review acknowledges delays in pursuing Pickton due to other high-profile investigations. But the main finding is that the RCMP did the best they could with what they had.
“It is easy to sit back and examine the Pickton file in hindsight,” the reviewers say. “It would be remiss if the review team did not comment on the fact that all members involved were dedicated and diligent in carrying out a proper investigation based on the information at hand.”
But the Vancouver police review, which was released last August, said the “information at hand” in the fall of 1999 was so compelling that it warranted an aggressive investigation. Instead, jurisdictional issues, poor management and shoddy analysis of the evidence derailed the probe and allowed Pickton to go on killing for another 2 1/2 years, the report said.
From August 1999 to Pickton’s arrest in February 2002, 14 women vanished from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and their DNA would later be found at Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam. Pickton was eventually convicted of murdering six women and sentenced to life in prison.
Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard, who wrote his department’s internal review, said the case was essentially sidetracked by the transfer of a senior RCMP investigator, as well as by a dispute over the credibility of an informant. Far more could have and should have been done, yet Coquitlam RCMP let the file languish for months at a time, LePard said.
The release of LePard’s report prompted the B.C. government to order a public inquiry headed by former judge and attorney-general Wally Oppal.
The Vancouver police declined to comment Tuesday; RCMP spokesman Insp. Tim Shields said the RCMP review is not the force’s official position.
Shields said the RCMP itself does not have an official position on the case. “We’re going to have to see what comes out at the inquiry.”
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