BC Crown ignores cops' warnings, Family butchered.

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British Columbia: Crown ignores cops' warnings, Family butchered.

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Opinion

Barry Artise, Now Public Contributor

Police charge that BC's Attorney General Wally Oppal, ignored Police warnings that repeat offender Peter Lee was too dangerous to be sent back into society. 

This week those warnings are too little too late as an entire family were stabbed to death repeatedly, while Attorney General Mr. Oppal and what seems a complacent bureaucracy collect fat paycheques, play solitarie on their computers and go happily about their daily lives with their family in what seems to be without a second thought to the fatal consequences of their inaction.

My Final Thought
British Columbians should revisit this travesty come election time to remind those paid to protect us are certainly unclear of the concept of Public Safety.

For Now Public Readers I am including two stories published today in the The Province Newspaper on Peter Lee .

[q url="http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=5ab10551-c0ab-4135-9011-c1e053a7d29b&k=42862"]Crown counsel agreed to release Peter Lee on bail even though the police had warned them that he was a danger to his family.

And when Lee failed to live up to the conditions of his release, the Crown refused to revoke his bail, according to court transcripts obtained by The Province.

Lee, 38, his six-year-old son Christian, his wife Sunny Yong Sun Park, 32, and her parents, Kum Lea Chun, 59, and Moon Kyu Park, 66, were found dead in their Oak Bay home on Tuesday, the victims of a murder-suicide.

Saanich police continue to watch the house at 310 King George Terrace, the scene of a murder-suicide in Victoria on Thursday.

Saanich police continue to watch the house at 310 King George Terrace, the scene of a murder-suicide in Victoria on Thursday.

Darren Stone - Victoria Times Colonist

On July 31, Lee was charged with aggravated assault of his wife, causing bodily harm and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm after police said he deliberately drove his vehicle into a pole.

Immediately after, Victoria police recommended to Crown counsel that Lee not be released on bail.

"We were concerned he would pose a serious risk to his wife and family," said Sgt. Grant Hamilton.

Crown counsel did not oppose bail, and senior Crown counsel Laura Ford decided to release him. Her decision was signed off by justice of the peace Delaine Carey.

Cases where bail is not contested often go before a justice of the peace rather than a judge, who signs off on the Crown's decision.

Court transcripts show that an unknown party at a later court hearing on Aug. 2 tried to revoke Lee's bail. When the issue was brought up by the court clerk, the judge asked, "Who wanted to cancel his bail?" The court clerk responded: "I don't know, that's just what the registry said -- they wanted to revoke bail."

Ford told the court she was not prepared to revoke Lee's bail: "It [the registry] might've been told by the Crown that there was a possibility of revoking the bail on the other file. I'm not revoking bail on that file . . . On the new file I signed off a consent release."

Lee's bail included conditions that he not be in the family home, not have contact with his wife, not possess weapons such as a knife and report where he was living.

On Aug. 29, before a scheduled court appearance, for which he failed to appear, his bail supervisor told the Crown that Lee had failed to report where he was living.

In court, Lee's lawyer asked for the case to be put over for two weeks. The Crown agreed, and Lee remained free on bail.

The case was adjourned to last Tuesday, the day he and his family were found dead.

Crown counsel spokesman Stan Lowe said the decision to release Lee was made by a team from the Crown office and was not Ford's decision alone. "The Crown agreed to Mr. Lee's release," Lowe said.

Lowe would not reveal who was on that team or speak to why the team overruled the police. The Crown office is reviewing all decisions in the case, Lowe said.

Coroner Rose Stanton said all five were killed by a knife with a four-inch, double-edged blade.

"It certainly seems quite clear four people were murdered and one person committed suicide," she said.

Some of the family members had wounds consistent with trying to defend themselves, she said. Lee, who was found with numerous wounds, was the last to die.

A Victoria knife expert said the four-inch, double-bladed weapon was likely a military knife. Lee had been a Canadian Forces navy reserve member since 1985.

We deserve to know entire truth about tragedyMichael Smyth,
The ProvincePublished: Friday, September 07, 2007

It's
obvious now that Peter Lee was a ticking time bomb. But nobody wants to
take responsibility for failing to defuse the bomb that exploded with
such terrible consequences on Tuesday morning.

You'd think the
chain of events that preceded the quintuple murder-suicide would have
painted a clear warning of the horror to come:

The alleged
abduction and assault of one of his prospective restaurant employees.
Another employee who says she was choked and slashed with a knife. The
neighbours who heard the fights and watched a sobbing little boy
confined to a locked car on a hot summer day.

The final warning came just over a month ago when Lee crashed his Land Rover into a pole, breaking his wife's arm.

Police
were convinced the "accident" was a deliberate attempt to injure or
kill his wife, Sunny. They wanted Lee kept in jail while facing
charges. Lee was instead released on bail. Now the entire family has
been slaughtered.

Why? Who is responsible for setting this
dangerous, unstable man free over the objections of the police? Nobody
wants to say. And everybody has an excuse.

Justice of the peace Delaine Carey signed off on Lee's bail release on Aug. 2. But Carey is not responsible.

"This
was a consent release -- the Crown consented to everything," a court
registry official told me yesterday. "There's a witch hunt going on
here."

Crown counsel Laura Ford represented the Crown in court that day. But Ford is not responsible, either.

"She
was the person in court, but it wouldn't be fair to accord the decision
to release Mr. Lee to her," Crown spokesman Stan Lowe told me yesterday.

"We have a bail team that reviews these matters. This decision was made by the [criminal justice] branch."

So who is on this team that decided to release Lee? And why did they ignore the police warning to keep him in jail?

Lowe
won't say -- for now. He said the Crown office is conducting an
internal review of all the decisions made on the Lee file. More
information will be available when it's completed, he pledged.

But judging by the way everyone is covering their butts now, will the entire truth emerge?

"It's not a formal review that will result in a big report," Lowe acknowledged.

Of course not. But it should be. And the results should be made public.

The deaths of so many innocents -- especially a child -- demand it.

msmyth@direct.ca

My Thoughts on this News Story

Now Public Readers should know, Governments Historically never take responsibility for their actions, this is just another case where it will be shuffled away.  Trust Me, Only Continued Public Outcry and Rage over this travesty hopefully will result in the Attorney General an others responsible to fall on the Public Sword.

If not come Election Time we need to remember the Political Party responsible never run this province again.