Thursday Dec. 4, 2014 (Vol. Vol. 39 No. 97))
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
A N D
S O U T H
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Due north: The Semiahmooo ooo Ravens’ atom A2 squad packed bags with ith some warm clothes this week, priorr to leaving for the Yukon – where, among ng other adventures, they’ll battle the elements ents in an outdoor game. i see page 29
20-foot fall after student told to get off the roof of Peace Arch Elementary
School district loses injuries appeal Tracy Holmes Staff Reporter
The Surrey School District has lost an appeal of a B.C. Supreme Court decision that found it 75 per cent liable for injuries suffered by a Peace Arch Elementary student who fell from the school’s roof nearly seven years ago. In a decision posted online Monday, B.C. Court of Appeal judges upheld findings from earlier this year regarding negligence and that the school district was largely to blame.
“While the risk may have been equally obvious to the plaintiff and the defendant, it was open to the trial judge to find that the defendant, an institution charged with the care of children and obliged to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of its premises, ought to have brought a greater degree of thought and care to the risk posed by children getting on the roof than did the children doing the climbing,” the Nov. 14 judgment states. The injured Grade 7 student was one of
two who had climbed onto the White Rock school’s roof via a cherry tree after classes on March 4, 2008. According to court documents, the 12-year-old fell approximately 20 feet during efforts to get down – efforts that followed a yelled order by the principal to do so. (The trial judge found the principal’s actions did not contribute to the boy’s injuries.) The boy landed in a gated cement stairwell, suffering “significant” injuries that kept him
in hospital for two weeks. In finding the district 75 per cent liable, the trial judge noted she was not persuaded by submissions the defendant could not have anticipated such an event. In the appeal, lawyers for the school district argued the trial judge erred in finding that “reasonable people foresee (that) children can and often do stupid things that are dangerous even when they know they should not.” i see page 4
Tradition stays afloat
Music therapy
Polar dip revival
Grade 7 students Kyle Wilson (far right) and Marcus Wilson play their saxophones outside Cambridge Elementary, 6115 150 St., on Monday to raise money for cancer research, following the death of a classmate’s mother to the disease. Evan Seal photo
Handlen arrested in Surrey following deaths of preteen girls in 1975, 1978
Charges laid in decades-old murders Vikki Hopes Black Press
Garry Handlen in the 1970s
Police announced this week that a 67-year-old Ontario man has been charged with the murders of two young B.C. girls more than 30 years ago. At a news conference Monday, police said Garry Taylor Handlen was arrested last Friday in Surrey and charged with the first-degree murders of KathrynMary Herbert, 11, of Matsqui, in 1975 and Monica Jack, 12, of Merritt, in 1978.
Police released a photo of Handlen as he would have appeared at the time of the murders, and they are asking for the public’s help with additional information about Handlen or about the girls (1-877-543-4822). Kathryn-Mary Herbert was last seen in the area of Townline and Marshall roads on Sept. 24, 1975. She never returned home, and her partially decomposed body was found on Nov. 17 of that year under a sheet of plywood in an undevel-
oped area of the Matsqui First Nation. Her skull was fractured and her jaw was broken. Her underwear, shoes and socks were missing. The autopsy was not able to confirm whether she had been sexually assaulted. Monica Jack vanished on May 6, 1978 while riding her bike along Highway 5A just south of Quilchena. Her remains were found on nearby Swakum Mountain in June 1995. i see page 4
White Rock’s Polar Bear Swim – a decades-long New Year’s Day tradition that organizers last year said they could no longer continue – will be back for another dip. Semiahmoo Rotary representative Valerie Giles said last week that all five local local Rotary clubs – Peace Arch, Peninsula, Semiahmoo, South Surrey and White Rock – have committed to hosting the 45th annual swim, supported by RCM-SAR5 Crescent Beach, YWCA, Interact, Jimmy Flynn’s and the City of White Rock. It is to take place at noon Jan. 1, with participants to set out into the chilly waters from near the iconic white rock. “Rotary did not want this important community event to die after the Lions Club folded,” Rotary District 5050 assistant governor Linda Coyle states in an email. White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin, in Monday’s inaugural address, described the RCM-SAR5 unit as the organizing agency. Unit spokesman Dean Donnelly clarified to Peace Arch News that the crew and its senior leadership at the Semiahmoo Peninsula Marine Rescue Society are working with the city in partnership with Rotary to co-ordinate the operational and marketing plans, “and in doing so lay the groundwork out for the next decade.” i see page 4
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