http://www.kamloopsthisweek.co...lty-verdicts-erased/



Hunter who had charges stayed fails in bid to have initial guilty verdicts erased


By Tim Petruk - October 5, 2016


A B.C. Supreme Court judge has thrown out the appeal of a Kamloops hunter seeking exoneration after an unusual ruling that flowed from a protracted poaching trial.

Abe Dougan was found guilty last October of four wildlife-related offences stemming from a record-setting Dall sheep he killed in 1999. Right after Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame handed down her verdict, she stayed all charges, ruling Dougan’s Charter right to be tried in a reasonable time had been violated.

Dougan was charged 13 years after the offence. His trial began in December 2013 and Frame’s ruling was issued on October 9, 2015.


Dougan sought the judicial stays, but did not expect them to be attached to findings of guilt. His lawyer, Kevin Church, argued the findings of guilt would have a severe impact on Dougan’s livelihood. He works as a hunting guide — a vocation that requires certification from the provincial government.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan, however, ruled that because a conviction was not entered against Dougan, there was nothing to appeal.

“The difficulties are obvious,” Donegan wrote in her decision. “There are no convictions to quash in this case.”

Dougan was charged following a high-tech investigation on the part of Yukon conservation authorities that used 3D mapping software to locate a mountain range seen in the background of a picture in a big-game hunting record book.The photo of Dougan and the trophy sheep was published in the Big Game Records of B.C. record book. Dougan claimed the record-setting Dall sheep was killed in a specific area in northwest B.C. in which he was allowed to hunt.

Using 3D mapping software, investigators in the Yukon were able to find a perfect match for the photo’s backdrop 18 kilometres north of the B.C./Yukon border — an area in which he was not permitted to have been hunting.

In 2011, investigators flew a helicopter to the Yukon location they found with the mapping software. They took a photograph of the backdrop, which was entered as evidence during Dougan’s trial, to be compared to the photo from the record book.

The photos bear a number of striking similarities.

The record-setting sheep isn’t the only animal that has landed Dougan in court.

He is slated to stand trial next month in Williams Lake on three charges dating back to 2013 — hunting wildlife within six hours of being airborne, unlawful possession of dead wildlife and failure to accompany a person guided.

Last year, he was convicted in a Yukon court on charges alleging he wasted meat from sheep, caribou and moose killed in 2011 and hunted too soon after being airborne. In that instance, Dougan was leading a Wyoming hunter looking for stone sheep.

The American hunter was fined $11,500 and barred from hunting in the Yukon for 10 years. Dougan was fined $15,000 and given a 20-year ban on hunting in the Yukon.

What POS poacher Abe Dougan is , great news.