WOMAN RELEASED BEFORE TRIO BEATEN

Constable Testifies About Night Six Officers Assaulted Drug Dealers

Six cops were chauffeuring a trio of Granville Mall drug dealers to Stanley
Park for a pre-dawn beating when they decided to give a fourth person in
the paddy wagon -- a troubled young woman -- a break.

Vancouver Const. Brandon Steele told a police complaint hearing yesterday
the officers stopped on Beach Avenue near the Sylvia Hotel about 5 a.m. on
Jan. 14, 2003, to let Shannon Pritchard find her way home.

The other three prisoners -- Grant Wilson, Barry Lawrie and Jason
Desjardins -- were inside Steele's paddy wagon en route to Third Beach in
Stanley Park, where one by one they were let out of the wagon and beaten by
six officers.

A seventh officer did not take part in the assaults and later blew the
whistle on the Stanley Park Six.

Steele and three of his cohorts were suspended. The other two constables --
Duncan Gemmell and Gabriel Kojima -- were fired.

The hearing marks the first time a dismissed officer has sought to have the
ruling overturned. Thumbs up from adjudicator Donald Clancy means Kojima
and Gemmell will get their jobs back.

The officers' plan was to drop off Wilson and his two associates far away
from their Granville Mall haunt, in accordance with the Vancouver Police
Department's "breaching" policy of removing people from an area where they
are breaching the peace.

"I recall that Ms. Pritchard had been introduced to crystal methamphetamine
by the three men," said Steele, the first of the Stanley Park Six ever to
speak publicly about the incident.

"She was from a small town, possibly up north. She had been sleeping with
one of them or all of them in order to get drugs."

Steele, 32, said Pritchard was in her late teens or early 20s.

"I [told her] she shouldn't be hanging out with those three guys," who
collectively had more than 100 convictions, he said.

Although he intended it to be an act of kindness, Steele admitted he didn't
ask if she had money for bus fare or a phone call. The officers pointed her
back to Granville Street, where they had arrested her earlier.

Steele was foggy on who was driving which of the three police cruisers, who
followed whom and who made the decision to take Wilson, Lawrie and
Desjardins to the park.

"I stopped [at Second Beach] because I didn't know where we were going to
drop these people off," Steele said.

"It was discussed that this was not far enough into the park because
they'll just come right back [to Granville Street]."

The four police vehicles then headed the wrong way down one-way Stanley
Park Drive in single file, the cruiser at the front with its emergency
lights flashing.

Steele is to resume his testimony this morning. Also expected to testify is
the seventh officer, Const. Troy Peters.