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Page 34 Snowboarder lands key spot. 604-463-2281
June 18, 2010
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Grant De Patieâs killer released Five years later, Darnell Pratt is out of jail. Grantâs father hopes he is rehabilitated. AMY STEELE asteele@mrtimes.com
D
arnell Pratt, who killed 24year-old Grant De Patie in a brutal gas-and-dash incident in Maple Ridge in 2005, is out of jail on statutory release. The only special condition the national parole board imposed on Pratt is that heâs not allowed to have direct or indirect contact with De Patieâs family members. Pratt will also be under standard statutory release conditions. By law most federal prisoners are automatically released after serving 2/3 of their sentence if they have not already been released on parole. During their statutory release peri-
od offenders are monitored by the Correctional Service of Canada. âMy hopes are that he will be successful,â said Grant De Patieâs dad Doug. âGrant gave his life preventing Darnell from committing that crime...In light of that I hope the best for him. I hope he does well for himself and becomes a member of our community. I donât want a failure for him.â Doug said Pratt was a âyoung kidâ when he committed the crime and he works on feeling forgiveness towards him every day. âWe all have to move on. Grantâs dead. Nothing I say or do will bring Grant back so itâs really all about Darnell now,â said Doug. However, Doug said if Pratt vio-
lates the conditions of his parole heâll âhave something to sayâ about it. âI think perhaps heâs going to get some of the help he now needs dealing with his drug and alcohol abuse and those sorts of things. I donât think he necessarily was getting as much as he could inside. I think this is more of the setting for him to get proper counselling,â said De Patie. Pratt, who was 16 at the time of the crime, received a nine-year sentence for dragging De Patie for seven kilometres under a stolen car in an attempted gas-and-dash. However, in April 2007 the B.C. Court of Appeal reduced his manslaughter sentence to seven years.
He also was given credit for time served prior to sentencing so his sentence amounted to five years and 10 months. During his sentencing the court heard that Pratt, an Aboriginal, was raised by a single mother addicted to meth and he had been in and out of government care since he was 12. He had a Grade 8 education and admitted to being drunk daily after he turned 16. The B.C. Court of Appeal found that his youth and aboriginal background should have been given more consideration in the original sentence and the court emphasized Prattâs rehabilitation as a factor in sentencing. â With files from Canwest News
Grant De Patie
Mayorâs property bought to make way for bus lane MARIA RANTANEN mrantanen@mrtimes.com
Sharpeâs Agency, a Pitt Meadows icon seen by thousands of cars that zip through the community on their daily commutes, will have a less visible location as the highway expands to accommodate the rapid bus lane being added to the highway. Pitt Meadows Mayor and owner of Sharpeâs Agency Don MacLean came to an agreement with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure this week on selling his property to allow for the highway expansion. âThey werenât generous, they were fair,â MacLean said. âWhich is probably how they have to use public money.â MacLean has until June 24 to sign the papers for the one-third of an acre he owns and while the ministry wants the business out by Sept. 1, he thinks thatâs pushing it and hopes to change the date to Oct. 1. He feels that is a more reasonable timeframe to find a new location in the downtown area of Pitt Meadows. The provinceâs 2031 transportation plan includes a graded intersection for the Harris and
Maria Rantanen/TIMES
Pitt Meadows Mayor Don MacLean in front of his business property at Harris Road and Lougheed Highway. Lougheed intersection but the acquisition of MacLeanâs property is for the rapid bus lane Lougheed Highway widening project, according to a ministry spokesperson.
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MacLean said he figures it was a convenient time for the ministry to buy the land, and heâs fairly sure the intersection will be built well before 2031.
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âThe land will never be cheaper,â MacLean said. âIâm sure (the graded intersection is) in the back of their minds.â If the province hadnât bought
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MacLeanâs property, the new rapid bus lane would have gone within inches of his front door, which would have probably put him out of business, he said. The view at Harris and Lougheed h a s c h a n g e d s i n c e Ma c L e a n arrived 25 years ago â Hale Lumber was still operating for a few years where Meadow Vale Mall now exists, and then the lot sat empty for a few years with coyotes and other wildlife wandering around before the mall was built. The building was originally the Sharpe familyâs farmhouse. Danny Sharpe, a former mayor of Pitt Meadows, owned the insurance company Sharpeâs Agency when MacLean went to work there 25 years ago. But the other half of the building housed the Pitt Meadowsâ branch of the CIBC and in the 1970s, it was the target of a bank robbery and shooting. Over the years, the building also housed a lawyer, an accountant, a taxi dispatch service and Meadowridge Realty before Sharpeâs Agency took over the entire building. MacLean said his feelings about moving are âmixedâ â the museum has requested some piece of memorabilia from Sharpeâs Agency.
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