Former Mayor of Kelowna, Colin Basran, will likely encounter a long legal war after one single sexual charge was levelled against him, emanating from an alleged incident on May 11, 2022.
The incident occurred while Basran was the sitting mayor, a time when Basran would have been considering whether to run for a third term as Mayor of Kelowna or not.
Present Mayor of Kelowna, Tom Dyas, announced his intention to run in the fall municipal election on June 29, while Basran had to wait till September 8 to declare his intention to run.
While how this case would have been handled had Basran won the election remains unclear, Darren J. Kautz, partner at FH&P Lawyers LLP said: “RCMP run investigations differently, depending on the circumstances. It’s a sensitive, or kind of public matter.”
Kautz says every person, from local RCMP officers to some of the local Crown prosecutors, could be in positions of conflict, “so they often will try to get outside counsel, who would have no real links to any of the parties involved.”
The BC Prosecution Service announced recently that Brook Martland, had been appointed previously as a “special prosecutor” in the case.
Kautz said: “Often defense counsel, well, let’s put it this way, you have the right to silence and often, defense counsel will encourage (the client) to do so.
“It depends on how severe this sexual assault allegation is, as to what provision in the criminal code they’ll charge you under, you need to know the facts of what the allegation is.”
Basran and his lawyers can petition to move the trial to another jurisdiction and depending on the charges, he could also demand trial by jury or judge alone.
Kautz said: “That will largely depend on the defense counsel, and whether or not they feel that it would be appropriate to have a trial in Kelowna, just based on the relationship between the accused and the city. And then it’s up to the accused to choose whether they want a judge or jury.”
In an identical case in B.C., the Mayor of Port Moody was charged with sex assault in 2019. The charge eventually stayed and the case was settled via an alternative measures program. The Mayor stayed in office through the process.
Also, Basran has the option of pleading guilty.
Basran, a rising politician in B.C., lost to Tom Dyas in the fall municipal election with Dyas getting 21,110 votes to Basran’s 10,821.
After losing the election, Basran revealed he wouldn’t have changed anything about his campaign or his time as Mayor.
He said: “I have slept very well at night as your mayor because I made decisions based on what I thought was for the best of everyone in our community. And there isn’t any decision that I would go back on, there isn’t any decision I would change.”
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