Photo: File photo

A Crown witness in the Jonathan Bacon murder trial has sold large amounts of drugs in Kelowna for years.

The B.C. government is working with some less-than-savoury characters in their attempt to convict the three men accused of murdering Jonathan Bacon.

The second Vetrovec witness took the stand Monday, testifying against Michael Jones, Jason McBride and Jujhar Khun-Khun.

A Vetrovec witness is a someone who is considered disreputable and may be an unreliable source.

The witness, whose identity is protected under a publication ban, admitted to dealing drugs in Surrey since he was 15, before moving to Kelowna at age 22 to deal crack and powdered cocaine.

When he first moved to town around 2006, he drove around giving free samples of his product to addicts, along with his phone number.

“Before I knew it, that phone was moving a lot of dope in a day,” the witness said. “I was probably pulling in between five or six grand a day.”

He said despite never having a firearm permit, he “pretty much always” had a firearm, and if one of the dealers who worked underneath didn't pay him what was owed, he might resort to violence.

“We would beat them up, I've broken guys' hands, I hit guys with weapons, broken people's bones,” he said. “One guy ... I made him put his hands on the counter and I broke his hands with, I don't remember what it was, but it was something big and heavy.”

After the witness's boss and drug supplier, Sukh Dhak, was killed in Burnaby in 2012, he stopped selling drugs, but by this time, he was heavily addicted to opiates. He testified he was spending between $300 and $500 a day on Oxycontin and Percocets in 2013, but had moved on to heroin by 2015.

After running out of his “large amount of cash” he had saved from selling drugs, the witness turned to robbing other drug dealers at gunpoint to pay for his expensive habit. Additionally, he organized a network of his former customers to steal tailgates from expensive pickup trucks, as he knew an auto wrecker in West Kelowna who would pay $500 per tailgate.

As part of his limited immunity agreement with the Crown, the witness had all of his outstanding charges dropped, in return for testifying against the men accused of murdering Bacon.

The witness testified he was “pretty good friends” with Khun-Khun at one point and he had been involved in hunting the eventual shooting victims with the accused prior to the shooting on Aug. 14, 2011.

The witness is currently out of custody on parole, after striking a plea deal with the Crown that was part of his limited immunity agreement.

The statements he made to police prior to his testimony in court must be cleared by his handlers in the Witness Protection Program before they are made public in court.

Defence is expected to begin their cross-examination of the witness on Aug. 28.