Fairy Creek protester acquitted of criminal contempt due to RCMP failure to give proper notice

A protester charged with criminal contempt for breaking the injunction prohibiting interference with old growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed has been acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court in a decision that could have ramifications for 180 others still facing similar charges.

Justice Douglas Thompson found Ryan Henderson not guilty because the RCMP failed to adequately inform him of the injunction.

Henderson was perched atop a tripod blocking the Granite Mainline Forest Service Road on Oct. 21, 2021, when an officer read out a short-form scripted version of the injunction that had been prepared by the RCMP. Henderson was then removed from the tripod and arrested. 

"The RCMP did not transmit sufficient information about the terms of the injunction order, and the information that was delivered via this script was not accurate and clear," said Thompson in his oral reasons for judgment. 

Henderson's co-counsel Ben Isitt said the RCMP's short-form script for the injunction was only a few sentences in length. 

"I think this decision shows in some ways the recklessness of the RCMP in their approach to enforcement at Fairy Creek. And it now calls into question whether Crown can proceed with prosecution of those with outstanding charges," said Isitt. 

The Fairy Creek old growth logging protests on southern Vancouver Island have been called the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history with arrests numbering close to 1,200. 

A five-month injunction to stop old growth logging protesters from blockading industry access to the forest was first granted in April 2021, and then extended one year after a B.C. Court of Appeal decision in favour of Teal Cedar Product Ltd. About 400 people were charged with criminal contempt for breaching the injunction. 

According to a statement from Rainforest Flying Squad, 210 of those charged have been convicted and handed sentences ranging from 15 hours of community service to 14 days in prison.

The group says in light of Henderson's acquittal, Crown must now review the remaining 180 cases to determine whether the charges should be dropped. It claims the RCMP read the same short-form script of the injunction to nearly all Fairy Creek arrestees.

"What Justice Thompson said is that that script wasn't enough ... and [it] failed to satisfy the well settled law, which is that a person has to have actual notice of an injunction order before they can be prosecuted for it," said Isitt.