Court dismisses claim of police entrapment
A man who sold drugs to undercover officers has failed to convince a judge he was the victim of entrapment.
In a decision issued Tuesday, provincial court judge Susan Mengering found Bradley William Knight, 67, did not prove on the balance of probability that police committed an abuse of process when they acted on information he was running a dial-a-dope operation.
Knight’s name came up as part of a larger investigation into street-level trafficking and open-air dealing in downtown Prince George. To find their targets, police relied on tips from confidential informants, RCMP themselves and messages left with Crime Stoppers.
On July 22, 2016, an undercover officer called Knight to arrange a purchase of either cocaine or crystal methamphetamine. After some discussion, they met in the parking lot of a local fast food restaurant where Knight sold the officer .36 grams of methamphetamine.
Crown had argued Knight made the first offer when he asked the officer “what do you want, dear?” while defence counsel asserted the officer initiated the purchase by asking if he had a “G of soft” or a gram of powder cocaine.
Then, on Aug. 25, 2016, another officer texted Knight for the same reason. When the officer asked if he was working, Knight replied yes and asked “what you after?” Following some back and forth over the quantity and price, they met at the same restaurant where Knight sold the officer some cocaine.
Defence counsel had argued that in the first instance RCMP had acted on “very thin, untested tip information of unknown reliability” and should first have confirmed the reliability of the source and the tip via surveillance or other means.
In response, Crown argued RCMP did not need to verify the information independently and that it was confirmed when the undercover officer and Knight engaged in a conversation consistent with the operation of a dial-a-dope operation.
Mengering found RCMP did have reasonable suspicion prior to making the calls to Knight and part of the tip information was confirmed when he answered.
She noted the officer in the first buy had never met Knight before and “so his response of ‘what would you like?’ was clearly his offer to sell her drugs.”
Similarly, she found the second officer’s question as to whether he was working was not an offer to commit a crime and his response, “what you after?” confirmed the tip information.
Earlier this month, Mengering had found Knight guilty of two counts of trafficking. Had she subsequently found RCMP had entrapped Knight, the charges would have been thrown out.
Knight will be sentenced at a later date.