Emily was the victim of a crime and the accused was her sister, Beth. Beth pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and a pre-sentence report was prepared by a probation officer. The probation officer called Emily to provide input into the report but she didn’t feel that her feedback was given the attention it deserved. Emily told us the officer did not contact other families and had not verified the accuracy of their report. When Emily attended the sentencing hearing with her family she heard many serious inaccuracies about her and her family and was quite upset. The report was read out loud by the judge and was potentially relied upon by the judge to determine Beth’s sentence.

Emily sent a letter outlining her concerns to the Regional Probation Office and requested an investigation into the report. The Regional
Probation Office launched an investigation but ultimately determined that the report was prepared appropriately and that the judge had enough information to inform sentencing.

Frustrated that her voice wasn’t being heard, Emily called our office.

Through our investigation, we found that the probation officer failed to review Emily’s victim impact statement prior to interviewing her as required by the Community Corrections Policy. The officer also failed to inform Emily that she was entitled to have a victim services worker or advocate attend the report preparation meeting. Although the internal investigation identified some deficiencies with the officer’s report, the Regional Probation Office did not provide that information to Emily.

We proposed and BC Corrections agreed to send Emily a letter outlining the steps that the officer should have followed, apologize for not following policy and provide training for managers and probation officers across the province on how to apply the Community Corrections Policy.