The mother of Surrey Six murder victim Christopher Mohan is still reeling today from the bombshell ruling Friday that charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder have been stayed against Jamie Bacon in the Surrey Six slayings.
“I just want to run to the ends of the world where nobody will hurt Christopher and I again,” Eileen Mohan told the Now-Leader on Monday.
Christopher Mohan, 22, was one of six men shot dead in gang violence in a penthouse suite on the 15th floor of Whalley’s Balmoral Tower on Oct. 19, 2007. Mohan shared a suite with Christopher on that same floor and had she been home at the time, she likely would have shared his fate.
Christopher, and Abbotsford gasfitter Ed Shellenberg, 55, were innocent victims who accidentally stumbled upon a drug hit in progress. Edward Sousakhone Narong, 22, Ryan Bartolomeo, 19, and brothers Michael Justin Lal, 26, and Corey Jason Michael Lal, 21, were also slain.
After waiting seven years for justice for her son, Mohan got a taste of it when Justice Catherine Wedge convicted Red Scorpions gangsters Matthew Johnson and Cory Haevischer of six counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
READ ALSO: ZYTARUK: Eileen Mohan, a remarkable lady
UPDATED: Charges stayed against Jamie Bacon in Surrey Six massacre
But Friday’s ruling, Mohan told the Now-Leader on Friday, further broke her heart.
“I feel numb, totally numb. My emotions are so high — I don’t feel hot, I don’t feel cold,” she said. “I don’t even feel I have a heart beat left. It’s just so unacceptable. It’s been 10 years. I had so much confidence in the justice system, in the court system, that it will safeguard us, keep us safe and secure, that it will fight for us.
“The court system needs a huge overhaul and they need to walk into the 21st Century and understand the crimes of the 21st Century,” she said Friday. “They have to understand how families bury their own, and how do they expect our lives to go on? With a verdict like this, how do they expect us to stay positive and feel included and feel like somebody has your back? It’s almost like betrayal.”
(Jamie Bacon’s arrest in April 2009, pictured above, in Abbotsford related to the Surrey Six Murders. Photo: Black Press)
Mohan was calmer on Monday, though still deeply wounded. “I do know that the powers that talked to me, that they are preparing for an appeal,” she told the Now-Leader.
“I’m told they will look into the possibility of appealing. I’ve been let down very badly and seriously, like it really hurts and so I am going to try to be very optimistic but honestly I thought that the courts would never, ever discriminate against innocent families,” she said. “My child was stolen from the doorstep of my home. We were a family uninvolved with criminal activity. We paid out taxes, we had the Canadian dream but to be given a verdict like that, against a gangster, it was a day where the devil had won for justice. Evil won that day and it just tells you that no matter how honestly you try to live in this world there will be people out there who will just not stand up for you, and people who really mattered, right?”
Justice Kathleen Ker stayed the charges against Bacon in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
“Over the past three years, the Court has heard a number of pre-trial applications involving complex legal and factual issues, including that Mr. Bacon’s counsel had come into possession of privileged information that they cannot use in his defence which impacts upon Mr. Bacon’s fair trial rights,” the judge noted.
The privileges, she said in her abbreviated reasons for the judicial stay of proceedings released Friday, include solicitor-client, litigation, informer and public interest privilege, as well as witness protection.
“My full written rulings are under seal in order to protect the Crown’s claims of privilege, which I have upheld,”
Ker stated, adding she is “not at liberty to provide any further information about my rulings or the evidence and materials underlying them.”
B.C. Attorney General David Eby said Friday he was “shocked, as I’m sure all British Columbians are right now” when he learned of the ruling. He expressed “tremendous disappointment.
“The families of the victims and all who have been impacted by this terrible crime deserve peace, and they will not find it today,” he said.
Eby said the BC Prosecution Service will review the court’s decision “closely to identify possible avenues of appeal. It is important to note that the individual remains in custody on other related charges. I am confident that the BC Prosecution Service will complete their review as soon as possible.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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