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Border guards suspicious of New Westminster youth coach, voyeurism trial hears

Longtime Lower Mainland youth coach Randy Downes couldn’t have suspected a quick, cross-border trip in 2016 would spell the end of his 30-year coaching career and his work as a youth sports photographer.

Longtime Lower Mainland youth coach Randy Downes couldn’t have suspected a quick, cross-border trip in 2016 would spell the end of his 30-year coaching career and his work as a youth sports photographer.

Downes, a Coquitlam resident, grew up in New Westminster and coached hockey and baseball in Coquitlam, Burnaby, New Westminster and other Metro Vancouver cities. 

He was on trial for voyeurism in New Westminster this week, facing two counts of unlawfully observing or recording children under the age of 16 “where the children were in a place in which they could reasonably have been expected to be nude.”

The incidents allegedly happened in Coquitlam, Surrey and New Westminster between June 1 and June 9, 2013 and Aug. 2 and Aug. 18, 2015.

Concerning photos

Downes had originally also been charged with making and possessing child pornography, but those charges were dropped after a preliminary inquiry because of a lack of evidence.

The six-month investigation that led to the charges was sparked by a stop at the Abbotsford-Huntingdon border crossing on March 21, 2016, the court heard this week.

Two Canadian Border Services Agency officers testified that Downes told them he had been at Bellis Fair mall that day for about three hours but that his only purchase had been a SIM card for his phone.

Jamie Phillipson
Coquitlam RCMP Const. Jamie Phillipson speaks at a news conference on Oct. 12, 2016, announcing charges against youth coach Randy Downes.

Coquitlam RCMP Const. Jamie Phillipson speaks at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, announcing charges against local baseball coach Randy Downes.

That led to a secondary inspection during which Downes’ cellphone was searched for evidence of other purchases.

Instead, CBSA officer John Selberis said he found several images in the phone’s deleted-photos folder of a child walking through the aisles of a store.

“I wanted to see if he knew the child, and I did ask him if he did,” Selberis told the court. “He told me he didn’t and he thought he deleted those photos.”

That prompted the border guards to search the other electronic devices in Downes’ vehicle: a camera, laptop computer, memory cards, flash drives and a second phone.

“My concern was for child pornography,” Selberis said. 

Downes had been a youth sports photographer, and Selberis said the search turned up thousands of photos of boys under the age of 15 playing sports, but there were also a number of images of boys in locker rooms and numerous images of boys wearing floral-print board shorts.

The officers eventually concluded none of the images met the criteria of child porn and sent Downes on his way, but – because of “concerns about Mr. Downes’ home computer and what he might have at home” – they forwarded a report about the incident to CBSA’s intelligence division.

That report was sent to the RCMP’s integrated child exploitation unit and Coquitlam RCMP, the court heard.

‘Not a sexual thing’

On April 27, 2016, police descended on Downes’ house with a search warrant, looking for evidence of voyeurism.

In an audio-recorded statement played in court, then-Const. Christopher Fox could be heard reassuring Downes the warrant was aimed at finding evidence of voyeurism and not child porn.

“Today is about establishing your innocence,” Fox could be heard telling Downes.

During the recording, another officer could be heard questioning Downes about a box of floral-print boys boardshorts found in the garage.

Downes explained that he liked “Hawaiian shorts” and had “just sort of collected them.”

“So, you like shorts,” Fox said. “What is it about shorts?”

“It’s just a fetish of mine. I like women’s boots too,” Downes said.

The shorts were not seized as evidence, the court heard later.

Fox testified Downes had also told him, in a statement that was not audio recorded, that he liked young boys, “but it’s not a sexual thing.”

Randy Downes
Randy Downes

Five months after the search warrant was executed, Coquitlam RCMP sent out a news release with Downes’ mugshot attached, saying he had been charged with making and possessing child pornography as well as with voyeurism.

Investigators called for more potential victims and witnesses to come forward.

Police and Crown prosecutors had 16 months to gather evidence to support the charges at a preliminary inquiry this spring.

Despite sifting through tens of thousands of photos, however, they failed to produce any images that met the definition of child pornography, according B.C. Provincial Court Judge Patricia Janzen, the judge at the preliminary hearing.

Locker room photos

In her opening submissions this week, ad hoc Crown prosecutor Gail Barnes said the photos relevant to the two remaining voyeurism charges were found on a USB storage device and a computer.

The two boys who were the main focus of those photos testified this week.

They cannot be identified because of a publication ban.

Barnes took them both through a number of photos showing them dressing and undressing down to their boxer shorts and bare torsos in locker rooms at various hockey rinks.

“Did you know that picture was being taken?”

“No.”

“Did you agree to have that picture taken?”

“No.”

One of the boys said the first time he had seen any of the photos was when he came to court for the first time in the spring.

Alexander Brnjac, a third hockey player, who played for Downes in 2009/10 and 2010/11, also testified.

He told the court he had once seen Downes holding a cellphone in a locker room after a game and that the photo viewfinder had been open.

Barnes questioned each of Downes’ former players carefully about showers and nudity in the locker rooms during the time they played for Downes.

The players told Barnes they hadn’t showered back then but that some of their teammates sometimes had.

Under cross-examination, however, defence lawyer Glen Orris reminded one of the boys that he had said, “Yeah, I think a couple of other kids did have showers” in response to the same line of questioning at the preliminary hearing.

“When you say ‘I think,’ I’m suggesting to you that’s because you’re not very sure,” Orris told the boy.

“Yeah,” responded the boy.

New Westminster court house
New Westminster court house - Cornelia Naylor

Orris reminded the second boy, who said he had seen other players take showers, that he had told the preliminary inquiry he used to change quickly and leave right away after games with Downes’ team because he didn’t know a lot of the other players.

“If you were in a hurry to get out of there, you wouldn’t really know what other people are doing, correct?” Orris had said at the preliminary hearing.

“Yeah, I guess so, not too much,” the boy had responded.

Brnjac had told the court that he had seen other players showering and that he himself had stripped naked after games to change out of his sweaty underwear.

Orris, however, suggested that was unlikely since a mother of one of the players had been the team manager at the time and was always in the locker room when the boys were there.

“That’s not true,” Brnjac said.

Court delay

Downes’ trial was scheduled to wrap up Friday, but Orris requested an adjournment after the Crown presented him with a new 175-page report from one of the Crown’s witnesses (RCMP expert Cpl. Kenny Hew) two days into the trial.

“I don’t know what (the Crown) intends to do with the report, if she intends to file it holus-bolus, take Mr. Hew through it or whatever, but I didn’t see this until Tuesday at two o’clock. This matter was committed to trial in April of this year. This date was obtained because Ms. Barnes wasn’t available earlier on. That’s fair; I’m not being critical, but to give me this report on Tuesday at two o’clock that afternoon is very late in the day.”

Because B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton is tied up with other cases, the trial won’t resume until February.