The case of the lewd graffiti and the giggling bylaws officer

Brian Cassell’s job is to chase trouble. Sometimes trouble turns around and bites him.

Cassell, a City of Kamloops bylaws supervisor, has a way of making news.

There was, for example, his tireless prosecution of Abbey, a tail-wagging Golden Retriever who had the nerve to step onto a city sidewalk to greet neighbourhood kids.

Then he redefined skateboards as litter. In that one, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that levying a $500 littering fine on a woman who planted a skateboard in a snowbank was “frivolous.”

On another occasion, Cassell reduced a dog-owner to tears outside a courtroom by warning her the pet would be put down if her fine wasn’t paid pronto.

A lawyer once claimed residents were being “duped” into paying bigger fines than they should, and Coun. Denis Walsh was moved to call his tactics “heavy handed.”

Last week, Cassell was in bylaws court for a graffiti case. About 15 minutes into the proceedings, Cassell broke into a fit of the giggles, and was told twice by Justice of the Peace Joan Huges to leave. He declined.

Cassell told me this week his loss of control had nothing to do with the testimony being given about the lewd nature of some graffiti on a Hydro box, which involved a naked woman.

“It had nothing to do with that.” Rather, he said, it had to do with a question the prosecutor had asked a witness. The “slip of the tongue” amused everyone in the courtroom, he said.

“We all laughed; the judge snickered a bit.” But he wouldn’t say what the “slip” was.

The tape of the proceedings, which I got access to at the Law Courts today, offers no clues in that respect. As a witness describes the likeness of a nude woman, prosecutor Courtney Aubichon is making it clear it’s a drawing rather than a photograph.

I could detect nothing in the way of a “slip,” nor could I hear Hughes uttering anything like a snicker.

Immediately before Hughes asks Cassell to leave, Aubichon says, “I request this be entered as Exhibit One,” in reference to a picture of the graffiti.

Maybe, to Cassell, that was hilarious.

Why didn’t he leave the courtroom when the JP singled him out?

“I just couldn’t stop laughing. It was just the totality of the incident as it unfolded…. I turned my back to the whole proceedings to wipe the tears out of my eyes…. I apologized to the court.”

As to the laughter that continued out in the hallway after the case was done with, that was “a wholly different issue.”

All in all, however, not the highest level of professional conduct we might expect from a civic employee. His bosses agree.

“His behaviour was inappropriate and he’s not to be doing that ever again,” said City CAO Randy Diehl. “In our view he should have walked out of the courtroom…. I’m not happy about it.”

In effect, Cassell is on notice to shape up.

Does he ever get the idea he’s simply destined to make the news, and not in a good way?

“It’s not my choice to get into the news,” Cassell said. “I never thought in a million years it (his bout of the school-boy tee-hees) would make the news.”