The BC Prosecution Service (BCPS) will appeal a B.C. Supreme Court decision to stay first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges against gangster Jamie Bacon in connection with the Surrey Six murders, which happened in 2007.
Earlier this month, the BCPS announced that charges against Bacon in connection with the deaths of six people in Surrey’s Balmoral Tower were stayed, but the reasons for the decision were sealed.
Bacon had been charged with conspiracy to murder Corey Lal, who was one of the six killed in the Surrey incident.
WATCH: From Dec. 1 — Jamie Bacon shocker
The BCPS reviewed the decision and is taking the case to the Court of Appeal based on numerous grounds:
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- The service believes the B.C. Supreme Court ruling contained errors of law
- The service believes that, had the errors not been made, then the ruling would not have come down the way it did
- The service believes an appeal would serve the public interest
The BCPS will ask that the stay on the charges be lifted and that a new trial happen.
The service warned that filings connected to the appeal are likely to be sealed, given what happened with the Supreme Court decision.
READ MORE: Charges stayed against gangster Jamie Bacon in connection with ‘Surrey Six’ homicides
In deciding to stay the proceedings involving Bacon, Madam Justice K.M. Ker of the B.C. Supreme Court said the gangster’s case involved a “number of pre-trial applications involving complex legal and factual issues.”
Bacon’s counsel had, for example, “come into possession of privileged information that they cannot use in his defence which impacts upon Mr. Bacon’s fair trial rights.”
“In part, this arose from the manner in which the police handled aspects of privileged and confidential information,” Ker wrote in her ruling.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby later expressed “tremendous disappointment” at Ker’s decision, and said the BCPS would review the matter and “identify possible avenues of appeal.”
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