A BC Supreme Court judge has slammed the Civil Forfeiture office for being overzealous in seizing a Kelowna woman’s truck.

Justice Douglas Thompson criticized the Director of Civil Forfeiture for seizing Roberta Allwright’s truck on July 1st, 2014. RCMP received a tip about an impaired man who was attempting to remove a boat from Okanagan Lake and that the truck had struck a couple of vehicles.

No evidence supported this allegation but the vehicle was stopped several minutes later as officers investigated the claims. The RCMP on scene said that while pulled over the male driver swapped seats with the female passenger and he appeared to be intoxicated.



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The tuck was towed and impounded, and officers discovered that the man who was originally driving had a suspended licence. The truck was subsequently forfeited as it was deemed “an instrument of unlawful activity.”

Judge Thompson found that there was no way to demonstrate the truck was in fact an instrument of unlawful activity and called the Director’s case “frivolous.”

“Regrettably, this appears to be a case where the office of the Director of Civil Forfeiture has taken zealous measures outside the proper bounds of its home statute with the unfortunate effect of depriving a citizen of lawful possession and use of her property, and putting that citizen to what I suspect is considerable expense and inconvenience to retrieve her property,” said Thompson.

The Director had argued that because the man was impaired and disqualified from driving, and had switched seats, the truck was an instrument of crime. That argument was fought by Allwright’s lawyer who said even if there was impaired driving, it didn’t cause bodily harm and wasn’t likely to, a factor required under the Civil Forfeiture Act.

The judge agreed with him and has ordered a new hearing to determine how much the Director should pay to cover costs incurred by Allwright.