A man who was a member of Prince George Fire Rescue at the time of his arrest and is the son of former National Hockey League player Dave "Tiger" Williams is on trial for allegedly possessing a stolen jet boat.
Benjamin Taffy Llywelyn Williams, 38, is facing a charge of possessing stolen property over $5,000 after he was arrested May 1, 2013, a day after members of the Prince George RCMP's crime reduction unit acted on a tip that the accused had the item on his 6600-block Bench Drive property.
After confirming the boat was at the location via both a fly over by an RCMP plane and a drive by in unmarked vehicles, police determined it had been reported stolen in 2011 from a Fort St. John man.
They obtained a search warrant the next morning but then made the unusual move of calling Williams to tell him they had reason to believe the boat was on his property and arranged to visit the home later that day.
The idea was to see how he would react, Mounties testified Thursday before the court, with Willliams' father and mother listening in the gallery while Williams sat beside his lawyer.
Moments after the phone call ended, Williams was seen driving his truck quickly out of his driveway and then backing over a neighbouring driveway and lawn towards where the boat had been parked behind a garage on the northeast corner of his own property.
Photos indicating Williams backed over some trees to reach the boat were presented to the court.
Shortly afterwards, Williams truck left the same way it came in, the court heard, with the boat in tow on a trailer that had also been reported stolen. Williams made his way onto North Nechako Road and then turned onto McLarty Crescent before a Mountie in an unmarked vehicle turned on his emergency lights to pull him over.
When Williams continued on, the siren was activated but, just as an officer in another unmarked vehicle drove up beside him in an effort to block him in, he pulled over with one RCMP vehicle in front and one RCMP vehicle in behind.
Under cross examination from defence lawyer Peter Wilson, Cst. Jamie Baker agreed that calling Williams instead of simply executing the search warrant was unusual and was done to see how the accused would react.
"For me, the normal reaction of somebody that doesn't know that something is stolen is shock and most people, in my experience, when they are told it is stolen would say 'hey, come get it, let's determine what's going on,'" Baker said.
"And for somebody to hook it up, [driving] over trees and leave a residence basically is an unusual reaction for somebody that didn't know what was going on."
Mounties testified there were signs that a grinder or some other tool was used to remove paint from the boat's back and sides. The boat's registration number was also missing from both sides of the bow as was the plate holding the identification number, which is needed to insure the craft, from the boat's hull, although the serial number remained on its engine.
Cst. Brendan MacDonald testified he was the one who called Williams.
"I told him that we had a tip that he may have a stolen boat, I told him that we were looking to investigate the file further," MacDonald said. "I asked if it was OK to come over to his house to look at the boat. Mr. Williams kept repeating OK ...I asked him if two o'clock would work for him. Again he repeated the words OK and that was the extent of our phone call."
Baker said he knew Williams from playing hockey in a Monday night pickup league in which the players were primarily RCMP members but also included firefighters. Baker said he knew Williams had a relationship with a fellow firefighter on McLarty Crescent but could not remember his name.
Another man who was a Prince George Fire Rescue member at the time, Jeremy Matthew Kostyshyn, 33, faces nine charges from the same investigation. Police have alleged the tip about the jet boat led to subsequent searches of other properties and the recovery of more stolen goods including another jet boat, a skid steer tractor and a mini excavator.
Williams remains a member of Prince George Fire Rescue.
Kostyshyn's trial was set for June but postponed when provincial court judge Dan Weatherly declined to hear the case when he learned one of the witnesses is a friend, raising a concern he would be in a conflict of interest. It's now set to start on Dec. 17.
The trial before provincial court judge Reginald Harris continues today at the Prince George courthouse.
