A White Rock man who appealed a Surrey court decision that resulted in a peace bond against him says he is not letting a recent dismissal of the proceedings in Supreme Court sway his efforts to prove his rights were violated.
Roderick Louis told Peace Arch News he filed an application with the B.C. Court of Appeal on April 23 to challenge both last year’s provincial-court proceedings and last month’s B.C. Supreme Court ruling.
In July 2013, Judge Ann Rounthwaite imposed a peace bond on Louis, 50, following a charge of “fear of injury/damage by another person.”
The charge stemmed from a 2011 incident in which another resident of Louis’s Martin Drive building alleged she was followed and filmed to the point she feared for her personal safety. Rounthwaite concluded the complainant had “reasonable grounds to fear” her neighbour.
Following a hearing April 4 in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, Justice Lance Bernard dismissed a trio of appeal applications – including one asking for a new trial – that were filed by Louis in connection with the provincial-court proceedings.
According to the BCCA application, Louis is seeking to appeal both rulings. He submits that his rights as a self-represented defendant were “unjustifiably infringed” at the provincial-court level, in part by the refusal of the prosecutor “to have any contact with me.”
It compromised Louis’s ability to prepare for the hearing and fully defend himself against the allegations, the document states.
Louis also claims the Supreme Court erred on points including finding that the provincial court did not err in ruling he could not “introduce evidence of motivations for dishonesty among the complainant and other Crown witnesses”; and, in finding the provincial court did not err in imposing conditions that “go far beyond what the(findings) imply is required for the safety of the complainant.”