Justice Ronald Tindale agreed March 4 to correct the record for a hunter who was acquitted in early 2025 in Provincial Court of violating another judge’s order.
“I will say it took me a couple of reads to understand the differences in the orders and the effect it made,” Tindale said. “So I can see how this occurred.”
Richard Dawson Smith pleaded guilty under the Wildlife Act on Dec. 13, 2022 to hunting on cultivated land without the owner’s permission and avoided trial. Under a plea bargain, Judge Oliver Fleck ordered Smith to retake the Conservation Outdoor Recreation Education (CORE) safety and ethics course by March 31, 2023 before hunting or accompanying another hunter again after March 31, 2023.
Smith relied on Fleck’s signed order and continued to hunt. Smith retook CORE in April of that year, due to course availability.
But, when Fleck pronounced the sentence, he inadvertently altered the wording of the joint submission. A conservation officer, who believed Smith violated the order that Fleck delivered, contacted Crown counsel, who sought to have the order ”corrected.”
Fleck signed the corrected/amended order, but nobody advised Smith and he was not provided a copy.
In May 2024, Smith was charged with violating the court order by hunting and shooting a lynx on Dec. 28, 2022.
On Jan. 10 last year, Judge Cassandra Malfair acquitted Smith, because Fleck had misspoken during sentencing and did not intend to change the negotiated sentence.
“It's really through inadvertence and a number of errors, I suppose, even by the parties not catching the exact words that were spoken by the judge,” Tindale said. “The sentencing judge was bound to accept the joint submission, barring any concerns that the proposed sentence was contrary to the public interest.”
Tindale agreed with both Crown prosecutor Lara Vizsolyi and self-represented Smith to grant the appeal and honour the original sentence, despite the fact the order is expired and moot.
“It's clearly in the interest of justice and fairness to the appellant that the record accurately reflect the joint submission,” Tindale said.
Last December, Smith sued the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, the BC Conservation Officer Service and four officers for defamation.
