No plans for additional permanent Crown counsel in Vernon: BC Prosecution Service

Photo: Castanet file photo

BC Prosecution Service says it's not planning to add more permanent Crown prosecutors to the Vernon office, at this time.

The response comes after the BC Crown Counsel Association has called for the number of Vernon Crown prosecutors to be increased from six to nine in order to keep up with a growing population and increasingly complex case files.

Ann Seymour with the BCPS said the distribution of prosecutors within a region is the responsibility of the Regional Crown Counsel.

“At this point, the BC Prosecution Service is not seeking to budget any additional requests for Crown counsel for the Vernon Crown office,” said Seymour in an email.

The budget for local Crown prosecutors comes from B.C.'s Attorney General, but the ministry doesn’t separately fund individual offices.

“Workload pressures arise from time to time in all Crown counsel offices and, when that occurs, the region works together to support the local office,” said Seymour in an email.

“Regional management has been actively working with the Vernon office to support Crown counsel to ensure operational needs are met.”

Seymour said the BCPS does everything possible to ease pressure and provide backfill when necessary.

Jennifer Johnston, vice president of the BC Crown Counsel Association, told Castanet last week the association is looking to get more support for the busy Vernon office.

She says more crown prosecutors would mean files could be processed faster.

Johnston said the Vernon population has grown about 33 per cent over the past 20 years, but the number of prosecutors have remained the same over the same amount of time. On top of that, criminal matters have generally become more complex.