The families of Robert Pickton’s victims are calling for a public inquiry into the authorities’ mis-handling of the case. In addition to the recent decision to stay the 20 additional murder charges against Pickton, it has recently been discovered that the Vancouver Police and RCMP stayed charges of attempted murder and forcible confinement of a sex worker who allegedly escaped Pickton’s farm after being tied-up and stabbed several times in 1997. The Crown stayed the charges, claiming the woman wasn’t credible.
http://fernwoodpublishing.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/9781552663776.jpgDavid Hugill’s Missing Women, Missing News addresses the state inaction and police silence that has plagued the Pickton case. Hugill deftly illustrates how news narratives obscured the social and political conditions which allowed for so many women to “disappear” from Vancouver’s densely populated Downtown Eastside without a serious, aggressive response from state authorities. Missing Women, Missing News is available from Fernwood Publishing in September.
