254847
Kelowna  

Kelowna fruit packing plant sues blogger over 'campaign of harassment and defamation'

Blogger sued for defamation

Kelowna family who runs a local fruit packing company has filed a lawsuit against a blogger over a “campaign of harassment and defamation.”

In a notice of civil claim filed earlier this week in New Westminster, Sandher Fruit Packers Ltd. says Daryl Grant MacAskill began “disseminating defamatory and false statements” about the Sandhers on his blog titled Gangsterism Out.

“Mr. MacAskill’s conduct in carrying out the defamatory campaign is so outrageous in character, duration, and extreme in degree, so as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and tolerance,” the lawsuit states.

Prior to filing the suit, the Sandhers previously sent MacAskill a cease and desist letter, which appears to have been ignored.

In the suit, Bir Singh Sandher, Gurtaj Singh Sandher and Prabtaj Singh Sandher outline a number of the false claims they say MacAskill has made against them beginning in March 2024, including that they are involved with the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, the Brothers Keepers gang based out of the Lower Mainland, and the Khalistan Tiger Force and Babbar Khalsa International, which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the Government of India and the Government of Canada respectively.

MacAskill has also accused the Sandhers of being involved in murder, human trafficking, terrorism, drug trafficking, drug smuggling, extortion, money laundering, bribery, and fraud, the suit states.

The blogger regularly refers to them as the Sandher crime family.

The Sandhers say MacAskill's blog posts are “racist, homophobic, derogatory, and reputationally damaging” and “outrageous in character, duration, and extreme in degree.”

As a result of the campaign against them, the Sandhers say they “have suffered damage to their personal reputation and standing in their community,” and Bir and his wife no longer attend temple for “fear of questioning and embarrassment.”

“The Sandher family deals with daily fear of racist and aggressive behaviour towards themselves and members of their wider family,” the suit claims.

“The Sandher family is unable to travel to India as they are accustomed to due to potential adverse treatment from the Government of India as a result of the alleged associations Mr. MacAskill has made between the Plaintiffs and organizations deemed by the Government of India as terrorist organizations.”

In addition to the civil claim, the Sandhers also filed an application for an interim injunction that would stop MacAskill from posting about them while the lawsuit makes its way through the court. In the application, the Sandhers say MacAskill’s campaign against them is “without apparent reason,” and his actions are “for the sole purpose of causing harm to the plaintiffs and he has succeeded.”

“This pattern of conduct is not new for Mr. MacAskill,” the Sandhers say. “He has long engaged in campaigns of defamation and harassment against other individuals and companies within British Columbia with who, he seemingly has no connection. The Plaintiffs are only his latest victims.”

The Sandhers say MacAskill has been ordered by the courts in previous cases to pay financial penalties, but MacAskill has said he has no money so any judgment against him is meaningless.

While MacAskill has yet to respond to the notice of civil claim, he filed a response to the application on Thursday, doubling down on his claims that the Sandhers are part of a terrorist organization, saying he “stands behind every blog post about the Sandhers as 100% true and factual."

MacAskill says he is “indigent and has zero net worth.”

None of the claims made in any of the court filings from the Sandhers or MacAskill have been proven in court.



More Kelowna News

254081