A murder case and an alleged bogus nurse were among B.C.’s top crime issues for 2023 while new stranger attacks dropped from the news as old cases made their way through the courts.
The highest-profile homicide case before B.C.’s courts this year was that of Ibrahim Ali, 33, now convicted in the death of a 13-year-old in a slaying in Burnaby’s Central Park.
A jury found Ali guilty Dec. 8 of first-degree murder in the death of the girl, whose partially naked body was found just after 1 a.m. on July 19, 2017, less than two hours after her family reported her missing.
The girl cannot be identified because of a publication ban.
Neither can her brother who spoke with reporters after the verdict.
“We hope that she can find some modicum of peace now, knowing that we caught the monster that did this and found him guilty for his heinous crimes."
The jury accepted the Crown's theory that Ali attacked the girl on a trail in the park, dragged her into the forest and strangled her to death while sexually assaulting her.
Central to the Crown's case was that Ali's semen was found inside the girl.
The defence, however, suggested she and Ali had had sex sometime earlier outside the park and someone else had killed her and dumped her body where it was found.
The brother had harsh words for the defence team, saying the family would be making formal complaints.
Alleged bogus nurse
The case of Brigitte Denise Cleroux made its way through the court system as she continued to change lawyers, leaving fears the case could be dismissed for not being speedy enough.
She is currently before the courts facing criminal charges of assault and fraud in connection with incidents at BC Women’s Hospital (BCWH).
As of the end of November, dozens of lawsuits alleging poor nurse hiring practices and alleged abuses by one woman have been filed against B.C.’s Provincial Health Services Authority and the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives.
Twenty-eight notices of civil claim were filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Nov. 21 in connection with fraud and assaults alleged to have been perpetrated at BCWH.
On Vancouver Island, Cleroux has been charged with fraud over $5,000, impersonation, use of forged documents and assault in connection with a View Royal medical clinic, RCMP confirmed. The alleged offence took place in 2020.
Meanwhile, a court information sworn in Surrey April 27 alleges Cleroux defrauded a man of money in excess of $5,000 between Aug. 24, 2019 and Feb. 29, 2020.
That information further alleges that, between April 5, 2019 and March 4, 2020, Cleroux fraudulently impersonated a woman with intent to gain advantage for herself.
Machete attacks
The case of one man charged with attacking people with a machete in Vancouver was resolved while others proceed through the courts.
Ibrahim Abdela Bakhit, who pleaded not guilty in a Vancouver machete attack where one person lost two fingers, was found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.
He appeared before Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Jennifer Oulton on charges of attempted murder, three counts of aggravated assault, one count of assault with a weapon encompassing events involving several firefighters and one each of arson and possession of incendiary materials.
Forensic psychiatrist Johann Brink told the judge Bakhit has schizophrenia and did not have the capacity to know what he was doing was morally wrong.
One judge in 2022 said ongoing stranger assaults had left people terrified.
Clergy sexual assault allegations
B.C.’s Supreme Court certified a class-action lawsuit against two Catholic schools and the Vancouver archbishop for alleged abuse by Christian Brothers transferred from Newfoundland and Labrador’s notorious Mount Cashel Orphanage.
Meanwhile, other similar notices of civil claim continued to be filed with the court, including one about the Christian Brothers.
It was more than 30 years ago that Canadians were horrified to hear tales of physical and sexual abuse of boys by the Christian Brothers order operating Mount Cashel.
The class-action suit, filed in March 2022, said the Christian Brothers transferred six abusive members from Mount Cashel to Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby between 1976 and 1983.
The suit was initially filed in February 2021 with representative plaintiff Darren Liptrot. He said in the claim he attended Vancouver College from 1980 to 1985, for grades 8 to 12, and that Brother Edward English sexually abused him.
Police questioned English in New Brunswick in December.
Most of the cases involved allegations from men alleging abuse when they were boys. Not all were male, though.
A Haida Gwaii woman in July filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver alleging a priest groomed and sexually abused her while she sought help in Vancouver.
In 1973, that suit said, the woman was 17 and semi-homeless, depressed, suicidal and abusing alcohol and drugs. The suit alleges she went into Vancouver’s Holy Rosary Cathedral in 1973 seeking help where she met her alleged abuser.
Kelowna hammer attack
A Kelowna man who had his murder conviction overturned by B.C.'s highest court pleaded guilty to manslaughter in relation to a deadly 2014 hammer attack.
In March, the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the 2019 conviction of Steven Pirko, 30, ruling that trial judge's final instructions to the jury about Pirko's defence were “so confusing as to amount to error in law.”
Pirko had been serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole until mid-2028 for the killing of Chris Ausman, 32. He struck Ausman in the head with a hammer at least two times while Ausman was engaged in a fight with Pirko’s friend Elrich Dyck.
In July, Pirko pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and guilty to the lesser-included offence of manslaughter.
Drug ‘superlab’ closed down
RCMP said in January they’d shut down a Metro Vancouver drug ‘superlab’ producing fentanyl, MDMA (ecstasy), and cannabis extracts and charged three men.
The investigation dated to August 2021 and has resulted in the seizure of approximately 16 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, four kilograms of pure fentanyl, more than 317 kilograms of marijuana bud and about $20,000 in cash.
As well, a cache of precursor chemicals for fentanyl production was found.
In assessing the seized bulk chemicals, Health Canada concluded it could have produced an additional 50 kilograms of pure fentanyl.
Kevin Gonzales, Jemroi Ibarra and Duc Phung have been charged with multiple drug-related offences.
Northern homicides
Prince George saw a bump in its homicide rate from five in 2022 to eight in 2023.
Two suspicious deaths that became homicide investigations happened in July.
A woman was killed in a home invasion in the city’s Alpine Village area July 18, the day after a body was found in a room at the North Star Inn and Suites.
Zain Wood, 23, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the home invasion death.
The city’s peak homicide rate was in 2010 with nine cases.
With files from Cornelia Naylor, the Prince George Citizen and Castanet
