Piche in court again this week for pot charges

Allen Piche outside the Provincial Court of BC in Grand Forks; Photo, Mona Mattei

Hearings continued this week for Christina Lake resident Allen Piche as B.C. provincial court Judge Donald Sperry heard testimony from the final witnesses in the case on outstanding marijuana charges.

Piche, fined in May 2012 for two counts of feeding bears on his property, was back in court this week for charges arising from the drug bust on his property that led to the discovery of the bears.

Constable Christine Halvorson and helicopter pilot Greg Burgess gave testimony at the hearing about the initial fly-over that led to the subsequent bust of the outdoor grow operation on Piche’s property.

Burgess, a pilot with the force for 11 years, said that he on average identifies 50,000 marijuana plants each year in aerial surveillance. “My eyes see the illuminated colour green, like a traffic light,” said Burgess on how he can tell the drug plant from other natural growth. “There’s no other colour plant like marijuana.”

Burgess testified that he can spot a plant from as high as 3500 feet above the ground, but on the day they identified the operation on the Piche property they were flying about 1000 feet altitude. The operation, he said, was in a series of uncovered greenhouses with some plants on the fringes of the structures.

After the last witness, Burgess, completed his testimony, defence counsel Jessie Gelber presented his final submissions to Sperry, relying on what he called conflicting testimony between constables, the pilot and the photos taken during the flight. Gelber said that the information to obtain a warrant (ITO) on which the RCMP got approval for their search of the property does not stand the test of providing full disclosure and could be in violation of a person’s rights if the search of the Piche property was done under a false ITO.

“We have the unique advantage of knowing that the JJP (justice of the peace who issued the warrant) was misled,” said Gelber in his submission.

Gelber said there were inconsistencies in the information on the ITO, that the reliability of information from the informant cannot be assessed and therefore should not be included, and that the ITO lacked full and frank disclosure. Gelber went on to present case law supporting his submissions.

Crown counsel Rebecca Drezdoff did not present her final submissions as the court’s day came to a close. Sperry gave Drezdoff three weeks to present her submission in writing and then additional time for Gelber to respond.

Piche is due to appear before the court again in July.