Somebody needs to launch a similar action in Justice Laura Gerow's court against Gordon Campbell, Colin Hansen and a whole host of El Gordo's henchman.

Same crime same forfeit?
seth  

Actually the judgement by the Justice was not appealed. Based on a single voter giving evidence that the email in question caused her to cast her vote the way Coleridge wanted is hardly justification for that judgement. Do I think it is wrong for politicians to lie? Yes.

The contents of Coleridge's email were never in question and the information was based entirely on the voting pattern and comments made by the candidates he wrote about in the email. His mistake was in lying during the campaign about who wrote the emails and not the content.

Coleridge was a councillor in White Rock for 20 years and voted against high rises in White Rock's Town Centre after his fellow councillors, some named in the infamous email, voted for them after ignoring the wishes of White Rock citizens Official Community Plan.

Coleridge was re-elected in 2008 along with four other councillors who opposed further construction of high rises by a vast majority.

Had he come clean about the origins of the email all of this would have been avoided.

Politicians note: If you make a mistake have the decency to apologize and come clean. Usually the public forgives...example Gordon Campbell's DUI, Driving Under the Influence charge in Hawaii.

 

Clearly pwlg did not observe the hearing nor read any of the court documents (including the Reasons for Judgement linked within the story). He says the judge's decision was "based on a single voter giving evidence that the email in question caused her to cast her vote the way Coleridge wanted." Nothing of the sort was stated in the judge's decision, nor was any such argument presented to her.

What was being challenged was precisely that which pwlg claims was "never in question"; Coleridge's email content was full of fiction, just like his stories about who wrote it. There were several witnesses at the hearing, all addressing statements made in the email. The ridiculousness of the allegations he levelled at his political opponents was abundantly apparent.

Coleridge's defence?... That he "believed it to be true." His lawyer even tried arguing to the judge that it didn't matter whether his statements were true or not, only whether he believed them to be true.

For example, his email claimed very precise percentages of his opponents' funding came from developers and people in the real estate industry. Many of those donors appeared as witnesses to explain to the judge that they have never been involved in constructing any building nor involved in the real estate industry except to purchase their own home. Coleridge's defense?... That anyone who owns property in White Rock could be considered a potential developer or involved in real estate.

His email perpetuated a local myth that the City loaned a developer money, but the entirety of the evidence he produced was one word in one brief memo. It was very obviously a misnomer, but that is all he could produce despite his repeated claims in the courtroom of having collected "reams" of evidence to support his allegation -- one word in one memo: a typo. The same kind of silliness was exposed for his other claims.

In the end, the judge decided that he violated the Act regardless of email contents, on which she made no statement whatsoever in her reasons for judgement. So, unfortunately, only the few people who actually attended the hearing could see that Coleridge's "information" was fiction.

Anyone who does not believe me should obtain a transcript of the hearing and review the proceedings for themselves. See how many times Coleridge claims to know something to be true despite producing no evidence to support his belief, in defiance of evidence to the contrary.

Nice try, pwlg, but just because the judge made no comment on the email content does not mean that it was truthful; it just means that the truthfulness of the content was irrelevant to her decision.