A B.C. court says authorities at a pre-trial detention centre have violated the charter rights of a purported gang leader charged in the slayings of six men in the throes of an ongoing gang war.
In a scathing written ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan says authorities at the Surrey Pre-trial Centre where Jamie Bacon has been housed since his April 2009 arrest have repeatedly violated his rights by basically acting as agents for police.
The judge denounces the warden for keeping Bacon in segregation for 23 hours a day, for denying him visitors, and limiting his access to legal counsel and even pens and paper.
McEwan says Bacon has been kept in conditions that "would be deplorable in any civilized society," and finds that they constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
He's ordered the pre-trial centre to restore Bacon's visiting and telephone privileges, ensure his access to counsel and grant him privileges such as gym time available to other prisoners, although he did not order the facility to end Bacon's segregation.
Bacon, one of a trio of brothers who police contend are the nucleus of the Red Scorpions gang, is accused of murder in the killing of six men -- two of them innocent bystanders -- at a Surrey apartment in October 2007.
