Trial of "Britannia 5" ends, clown acquitted

Berg case: OPCC Counsel flays VPD internal investigation

Jeff Berg hearing resumes

Cathedral Grove injunction application adjourned

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The lengthy criminal trial of five people charged after a disturbance at Britannia Community Centre in October of 2002 has finally ended. Rev. George Feenstra and several others were charged with assaulting police officers, obstructing police officers, causing a disturbance and being members of an unlawful assembly after a planned visit to the centre by Premier Gordon Campbell was called off.

According to the evidence at trial, Rev. Feenstra was dressed up as a clown when he was grabbed by the police, handcuffed, and thrust against a wall. He was strip-searched and jailed for about 30 hours. The Crown called dozens of police officers from the Vancouver Police Department as witnesses. After nineteen days of trial, Rev. Feenstra was acquitted of all charges. Judge Smyth is expected to render a verdict in the cases of the remaining four accused on June 24, 2004.

At the public hearing into the the death of Jeff Berg at the hands of Vancouver police Department Cst. David Bruce-Thomas in October of 2000, Commission Counsel Dana Urban, Q.C. characterized the VPD's internal investigation as "incompetent at best". He also accused the internal investigators of ignoring a key independent civilian eyewitness and dissuading others from testifying at the hearing.

Urban said that the accounts of three civilian eyewitnesses indicated that Jeff Berg had surrendered to the police and was standing quietly when Bruce-Thomas hit him in the head or neck with his handgun and knocked him to the ground. He was then kicked in the head three times. According to Urban, expert evidence suggests that Berg was clinically dead, and therefore not resisting, when the kicks landed on his head. The pathologist's report of the autopsy states that Berg died of a blow to the neck and had bruises and lacerations to his head and a severely bruised testicle.

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The public hearing into Julie Berg's complaint that police used excessive force in dealing with her brother resumes on Monday, March 15, 2004 with a further "case management conference". We will be applying for standing to participate in the hearing and for disclosure of the contents of police files.

Ms. Berg has tried vainly to obtain answers from the authorities ever since her brother Jeff was killed in October, 2000 after he was assaulted by a police officer. She filed her formal complaint in November, 2000. The police officer involved, VPD Cst. David Bruce-Thomas, was never charged, there has been no Coroner's Inquest yet (though one is mandatory) and the Police Complaint Commission public hearing has been adjourned to June, 2004, after some police witnesses refused to be interviewed by Commission counsel.

The case management conference will commence at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, March 15, 2004 in courtroom 108, 800 Hornby Street, Vancouver.

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

Joni Mitchell

The provincial government's application for an injunction has been adjourned to Friday, March 12, 2004. Supreme Court Justice Quijano put the matter over after hearing from lawyers for the Attorney General and the "Jane Does" who have been named as Defendants in the government's civil lawsuit. The government has sued one hundred unidentified people for damages, claiming that demonstrators opposed to the construction of a large new parking lot at Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island have trespassed on public Crown land. Lawyers will be back in B.C. Supreme Court in Nanaimo on Friday morning at 10:00 a.m.

For more, please go to www.cathedralgrove.com