VANCOUVER - A lawyer for the Vancouver police department says the Office of the Police Complaint Commission is overstating a forensic pathologist's' opinion to suggest a man found in an alley may have died in police custody.
Sean Hern has told a public inquiry that documents about Frank Paul's death in an alley didn't mention anything about the pathologist's apparent opinion for three years.
Former police complaint complaint commission lawyer Dana Urban has said that pathologist Rex Ferris said in a November 2000 interview that Paul could have died in police custody.
But Hern grilled Urban about why that vital piece of information wasn't forwarded to the attorney general or the coroner's office until January 2004.
Hern says the coroner's service would have been obligated to hold an inquest if Paul had died in custody prior to a police officer leaving him in the alley.
Paul was found dead of hypopthermia on Dec. 6, 1998 after a sergeant refused to admit him to the drunk tank.
