Madam Justice Mary Humphries said she heard no evidence that Aaron Webster's beating death was a hate crime, despite its brutality.
She also said there was no evidence of his sexual orientation, a statement that brought gasps from members of Webster's family and the gay community who were in court.
Justice Mary Humpries (CBC Image)
Either the Supreme Court Justice is sending a strong message to the Crown counsel, ie "you did not do your job" or the Justice has chosen to ignore a pretty important aspect to the case.
The Crown all along has said it would be difficult to prove this was a "Hate Crime". I suggest the Crown did not even try. The justice made it clear, the evidence provided in court by the Crown didnot even prove Aaron Webster was gay. The Justice in this case would of course be pretty much aware that Webster was gay from news reports. She could not use this information in her decision as she did not hear evidence of this from the Crown.
The Attorney General and his department have failed justice in the interest of expediency. As a gay community we are supposed to go away and be satisfied with this result.
I am not statisfied. I am not going away and I my guess is neither is the gay community. The six year term may be appropriate, I am not an expert. What I do know is four young men went to a well known gay hang out place, found Aaron Webster and beat him to death. They even had the tools to do the job with them.
We all know they went there looking to beat up a fag. I suspects the Justice knew this as well. The Crown and the Attorney General knew this, they took the easy way out.
Check out the exhaustive coverage given this story from Xtra! West
since Aaron Webster was killed.
Robinson calls on BC attorney general to apply hate crimes law in ...Canoe.ca, Canada - 23 Jan 2005... calling for a hate-crime designation to be added to the sentences of those convicted in the November 2001 beating death of gay photographer Aaron Webster, 41. ...
Crown urged to use hate-crime lawCBC British Columbia, Canada - 24 Jan 2005... Aaron Webster. "And I say that the silence of the Crown has been deafening and shameful and should never have happened," said the former MP, and long-time gay- ...
2 comments:
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What a total and outrageous statement.
This whole case has been a series of bad jokes from the get go..."peeping toms" indeed....
There is ample evidence that Aaron Webster was gay and, despite the reluctance of a ball-less Crown, this should have been presented in the context that he was targeted for that, beaten for that, and killed for
that.
The murder of Aaron Webster was a classic hate crime.
However, for the sake of argument, let's assume Aaron wasn't gay at all...does that alter the fact this was a hate crime based on sexual orientation? No, because -- despite the line of BS about going out looking
for "peeping toms" -- this was about a gang of thugs hunting queers in a known cruising area of Stanley Park.
These thugs *knew* it was a gay cruising area. When they spotted Aaron they attacke him on the *assumption*
he was homosexual and it was for that reason they beat him to death with the pool cues and cudgels/bats. That qualifies this as a hate crime. One doesn't actually have to be the minority the killers believed one to
be.
What matters in this is the belief and motivation of the killers.
This is outrageous.
Aaron Webster was my first boyfriend. I slept with him, had sex with him. He was gay
I met Aaron at Buddy's, a gay bar in 1984? I spent time with him and if I knew this untruths were being said, I would have come forward.
Mark
m1000@telus.net
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