A Surrey man has lost an appeal of his conviction on five drug offences that arose out of goings-on at a condominium rental suite in Vancouver.
The trial judge determined the suite to be a “stash site” for kilos of cocaine Frederic Dwayne Wilson was trafficking as well as precursor chemical and equipment for cooking methamphetamine.
The appeal court heard that after investigating for five months police arrested a co-accused as he was leaving the suite, searched him and found four kilograms of cocaine and a loaded handgun. Following that, police obtained a warrant to search the suite as well as Wilson’s home in Surrey.
“The fruits of those searches led to Mr. Wilson’s arrest and conviction,” Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon noted in her reasons for judgment.
Wilson appealed his conviction on grounds the arrest of his co-accused was unlawful, that the judge erred in finding he didn’t have “a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common area outside his suite or in the video surveillance footage of that common area, and the verdicts weren’t supported by evidence.
The appeal court disagreed.
“In my view, the trial judge made no material error in coming to her verdict,” Fenlon decided.
Justices Mary Saunders and Sunni Stromberg-Stein concurred.
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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