RailGate Reloaded....The Smoking Admissibility Gun

AllThePublicationBans

ThatNoLongerExistVille

Ian Reid, like a number of Citizen Journalists we correspond with, both online and offline, spent time in the RailGate courtroom while the jury was not present.

At the time, there was a Publication Ban in place with respect to any and all matters that were discussed.

However, now that the trial is over so is the publication ban.

So.....

Folks like Mr. Reid are now free to talk about what they saw and heard with their own non-accredited eyes and ears during all those times the jury was out and the lawyers were jawing, mouths agape.

In a post written today, Ian tells us what he thinks really went down based on what he saw and heard way back in June of this year:

"It all started with a question from Michael Bolton – representing David Basi – to (prosecution witness and the Premier's chief-of-staff) Martyn Brown late last June.

Bolton began asking Brown about the relationship between lead RCMP investigator Kevin DeBruyckere and BC Liberal Party Executive Director Kelly Reichart. They are brothers-in-law.

Immediately Special Prosecutor Bill Berardino jumped up to object to Bolton’s questioning. The jury was excused and the longest legal wrangling delay in the trial began. With the jury excused the wrangling was under publication ban. What happened that last week of June in Courtroom 54 has never been reported......"

Essentially, in the legal wrangling that followed, Mr. Reid, tells us that the Special Prosecutor argued vehemently, behind closed doors with the jury absent, that a pre-trial agreement made it impossible for the defense to argue matters of 'investigative bias'.

Despite all this wrangling from prosecutor Berardino, when the jury came back into the courtroom a week later, this is what happened:

".....Michael Bolton got up and asked Martyn Brown about Kelly Reichart and Kevin de Bruyckere. The defence won the closed door argument about admissibility. The Special Prosecutor lost....."

And the kicker to all that?

Well, in Ian's opinion it meant the following:

"...That meant the way was clear for the defence to question Gary Collins, even Gordon Campbell amongst others, about these issues. The way was clear to ask about Reichart and deBruyckere about the RCMP steering the investigation away from Gary Collins. More importantly, the way was clear to introduce evidence supporting the claim....."

And we, like the previous Railgate judge Elizabeth Bennett, know that evidence is out there.

And we also know that, according Mdme Justice Bennett's previous pre-trial rulings that at least some of it went straight to the matter of innocence at stake.

Which means that it mattered.

Is it any wonder that Mr. Collins could not be allowed to testify, under oath, with a wide-open cross examination based on evidence such as the transcripts of wiretaps from the RCMP?

Do yourself a favour - Go and read Ian's post in its entirety, and then think about how it is all something that you should be reading in the Vancouver Sun and The Province.

Why?

Because their reporters were in the room when the jury was absent too.

And they, like the Citizen Journalists that they would not accredit when the trial began, are also no longer subject to the Publication Ban.

'Nuff said?

.