Accused takes stand in stolen jet boat trial

A Prince George firefighter accused of possessing a stolen jet boat and trailer took to the stand as a trial in Prince George provincial court continued Thursday.
On the morning of his May 1, 2013 arrest, police called Benajmin Taffy Lewellyn Williams, 39, to tell him they suspect there may be stolen items on his property and would be coming over mid-afternoon to see.

After getting off the phone, Williams immediately hooked the trailer and boat up to his SUV and drove away. Spotted by RCMP who were surveilling the property, he was arrested a short time later.

"I took from that phone call that officers were kind of giving me a heads up that that boat should not be on my property when  they come by," Williams said when questioned Thursday by defence lawyer Peter Wilson.

"I figured that they were maybe doing me a courtesy and I was worried about getting arrested in front of my children."

Williams, who played junior A and some professional hockey prior to becoming a firefighter, said he played pickup hockey with local RCMP as often as he could in the 11 year's he's lived in Prince George. He has also played about 30 Battle of the Badges hockey games between firefighters and RCMP, with two of them involving local police.

Williams said he bought the boat and trailer from then fellow firefighter Jeremy Kostyshyn, who continues to face charges of trafficking stolen property, in April 2012.

By then, Williams had known Kostyshyn for about four years and trusted him "absolutely."

"We worked together and beside each other fighting fires and stuff like that, so we had each other's backs," he told Wilson.

Williams said he did not know the items were stolen property until he got the phone call, and came away "scared, nervous, panicked."

He hadn't thought through where he would go with the boat and trailer once on the road.

"I was panicking, I was just getting it off my property," Williams said.

Under cross examination from Crown counsel Cassandra Malfair, Williams said he bought the boat for $9,500 after taking it on a test drive at Westlake. The price was a counteroffer to a higher price Kostyshyn first proposed, the court heard.

In earlier testimony, the court heard the ignition was missing from the boat when Williams was arrested. Asked if he knew how the ignition came to be removed from the boat, Williams said "no," and agreed that once it was removed, starting the boat would have been impossible.

Williams said the boat's key, which he described in some detail, was back in his garage when he was arrested and he later threw it out. Asked why he didn't give it to the RCMP so they could return the key to the boat's owner, Williams said he didn't want to go back and talk to police after what he had been through.

Williams disagreed when Malfair suggested there had never been a key and his story of throwing it out was a convenient explanation to hide the fact.

Williams said he bought the boat on the basis of the quality of its motor and that it floated. He thought about the lack of paint on its hull was part of the reason Kostyshyn agreed to his offer. Pressed about the fact the registration number had also been stripped off, Williams said he didn't know anything about registration numbers.

Williams received no bill of sale, paid no transfer tax, didn't check for a lien on the craft, did not insure the boat and did not register it, the court heard. Other than the original test drive, Williams said he never did take it out on the water and stored it behind his garage.

Malfair noted that according to previous evidence, police called to say they received at tip that he "may be in possession of a stolen boat and they ask if it was o.k. to come to your house to look at it."

Williams replied that he remembered hearing "stolen boat" and "panicked."

Williams began his testimony after judge Reginald Harris threw out a statement he gave to police on the day of his arrest because of concern his rights had been breached. Harris found it was not clear if Williams was given a chance to access a lawyer of his choice before he gave the statement.