Pubdate: Thu, 06 May 2010 Source: Creston Valley Advance (CN BC) Copyright: 2010 Glacier Interactive Media Contact: http://www.crestonvalleyadvance.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1413 Author: Lorne Eckersley DROPPED DRUG CHARGES PUSH JUDICIAL APPOINTMENT Former Creston lawyer William Grant Sheard has been appointed as a new provincial court judge for the Kootenay region, but it appears to have taken a botched drug case for the provincial government to make the announcement. Sheard, who practiced law in Creston before moving to Cranbrook, where he became a respected Crown prosecutor for nine years, will assume his duties on May 17 in Cranbrook Provincial Court. He has been with the legal firm Miles, Daroux, Zimmer and Sheard for the past decade. Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall said she was pleased by the appointment, but unhappy that "a coke dealer has to get off" before the government acted to fill a position created by a previous judge's retirement. The drug case made provincial headlines recently when drug charges were dropped against a man who had waited for two years for his case to be heard. "I can't believe that despite the long notice and history of case backlog, it took a coke dealer going free to get this government to act," said Mungall. "This situation highlights the B.C. Liberal government's neglect of rural areas' critical needs." According to Dina Bambrick, executive director of Kootenai Community Centre, the solicitor general's office has known about this gap in service for two years as the planned retirement of judges took effect. "I'm concerned this won't be fixed with the appointment of one judge," she said. "The backlog is so big it could take years of criminals going free to catch up and I predict it won't ever at this rate because we need more judges than were in place as it is." - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart