![]() Oppal disagreed and over the course of the next two years appointed two more special prosecutors until the third finally agreed to lay charges. ![]() He recommended a constitutional reference case. But rather than laying charges, Peck agreed with the previous opinions that the law’s constitutionality was in doubt. He appointed special prosecutor Richard Peck to review the RCMP files. do not view this religious community as being bizarre or particularly cult-like, but instead view it as another manifestation of multiculturalism, a different way of expressing spirituality.”īut by 2007, then Attorney General Wally Oppal had had enough. Gary Deatherage, the director of the local Mental Health Centre: “We. The zeitgeist was reflected in a report to the government done in 1993 by O. For more than a decade after that, provincial lawyers refused to approve charges because of never-published legal opinions that the law was invalidated by the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Palmer’s sister, Jane, was Blackmore’s first and only legal wife.Īlthough RCMP recommended charges, lawyers in the attorney general’s ministry refused to lay them. She is also Blackmore’s stepmother, having married Winston’s father when he was 55 and she was 15, and his sister-in-law. It was prompted by complaints by Debbie Palmer - James Oler’s half-sister and Dalmon’s daughter. The targets of the investigation were Blackmore and Oler’s father, Dalmon. Nurses and doctors occasionally saw the same man at the side of different women giving birth in the hospital and watched as he signed both birth certificates indicating he was the father.īecause no one complained, the first RCMP investigation didn’t even take place until the 1990s. But local, provincial and federal governments not only ignored it, they funnelled money into the community in the form of child benefits, private school grants and money for a private midwives’ clinic. The road to this trial, which starts Tuesday, is decades long, winding and marked by missteps along the way.įor more than 70 years polygamy has been practised in Bountiful. To help the court with legal issues and ensure fairness, Joseph Doyle was appointed as an amicus for this trial.ĭoyle was also the amicus in November when Oler faced the more serious charge of removing a child from Canada for an illegal purpose. Despite that admission under oath, Blackmore has never been charged with sexual exploitation or sexual interference.īy contrast, 53-year-old Oler has never spoken publicly and has refused legal counsel. In a deposition filed in a Utah civil trial in 2014, Blackmore said three of his brides were 16 and one was 15. Asked how many children he had, Blackmore said he’d have to call home to find out.īlackmore has admitted that 10 of his wives were 17 or younger when they were married. It was only after he was prodded by the government’s lawyer that he got them all. Under oath in Federal Tax Court in 2012, Blackmore struggled to name all his wives, missing one. He’s talked about it with reporters and in civil trials in the United States. He spoke about his multiple wives at a 2005 polygamy summit that his wives organized. ![]() By contrast, Oler’s indictment lists “only” four.īoth are former bishops of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and descendants of the six founding fathers of Bountiful, a community of about 1,500 people in southeastern B.C.īlackmore has never tried to disguise the fact he has multiple wives, who have borne him 146 children. ![]()
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