COKE SUSPECT'S RIGHTS VIOLATED, LAWYERS ARGUE

Search Illegal, They Claim

POLICE repeatedly violated the rights of a woman who is facing
cocaine charges, and the evidence they gathered should be thrown out,
the woman's lawyers argued Friday.

Lawyers Sheldon Pinx and Roberta Campbell spent two days arguing that
the officers who stopped the woman had violated her rights. Police
never told her she had the right to consult a lawyer and therefore,
the permission she gave police to search her luggage did not amount
to informed consent, the lawyers said.

Justice Lori Spivak reserved decision on the challenge.

If Pinx and Campbell succeed, it's expected that they'll ask Spivak
to toss out all the evidence against the woman.

The woman, now 27, was charged Nov. 13, 2002, after she stepped off a
bus from British Columbia at the Portage Avenue bus depot. Police
found 10 kilograms of cocaine, with a street value at the time of
$800,000, in her baggage.

Pinx and Campbell tried to stop the case before it went ahead with a
pre-trial motion arguing that the police didn't have reasonable
grounds to search the woman because the police could have faked a
Crimestoppers tip -- which alerted police that a woman was arriving
by bus with cocaine. Spivak denied that motion. This week in court,
Pinx and Campbell said the inexperienced police officers who detained
the woman at the bus depot had not taken any steps to verify the
essential details of the Crimestoppers tip as they are required to do.

Officers told the court they stopped the woman because she fit the
description by the anonymous tipster but they had not tried to see if
anyone else fit the description. The officers, who had been on the
force for less than two years, said they physically grabbed the woman
because she didn't appear normal. They continued to hold onto her as
they asked her permission to search her luggage, and then patted her
down before putting her in a police cruiser. Campbell said that the
woman was never arrested or charged with any offence before police
found the cocaine, adding their actions could not be described as reasonable.

Crown counsel Clyde Bond conceded some of the police officers'
actions amounted to a violation of the woman's Charter rights but
said not all her rights had been violated.

Pinx said that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that police
cannot detain people based on a hunch.