Pickton investigation to be reviewed by B.C.

The B.C. government will launch a judicial review or public inquiry into the police investigation of the missing women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastsideprior to thearrest of serial murderer Robert Pickton, acting provincial Solicitor GeneralRich Coleman said Friday.

"I think that we still need to have the transparent review, which the premier has committed to and will take place," Coleman told CBC News. "It's just what form that will take will be decided by cabinet in early September."

Coleman's statement follows the early release Fridayofa highly critical Vancouver Police Department internal report on the investigation of Pickton.

Police releaseda version of the final report with confidential informants' names blacked out after the Vancouver Sun published details from a 2004 draft copy.

The internal report, which was completed by Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard by 2006, was supposed to come outSept. 9 after it was reviewed by the B.C. cabinet.

'I wish we could have caught this monster sooner and saved more lives.' Doug LePard, Vancouver police deputy chief

But because of aleak to a Vancouver newspaper, the 400-page report wasreleasedby LePard and Chief Jim Chu at police headquarters on Friday afternoon.

LePard said he spent two yearsgoing over more than 20,000 police documents and interviewing Vancouver police officers to write the report, which blamed systemic issues within the force, rather than individual officers, for the failed investigation.

LePard said the report faults the Vancouver police and the RCMP for not moving quickly enough to arrest Pickton despite compelling evidence collected by 1999 that he could be behind the disappearance of a growing number of missing prostitutes.

"I wish we could have caught this monster sooner and saved more lives," said LePard. "This can never happen again."

In a news releaselater Friday, theRCMP said it would not respond immediately and would take time to review and analyze the Vancouver police report.

But in the statement,RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass also suggested that the force wouldaccept some responsibility for the lapses in the investigation into the Downtown Eastside's missing women.

"The RCMP deeply regrets that we weren't able to gather the evidence necessary to lay a charge sooner, and we welcome independent insight into our actions at that time. The impact that this has had on the families of the victims weighs heavily on us individually and as an organization."

Better communicationneeded

The Vancouver police report said evidence included eyewitness accounts of a woman's body in Pickton's barn, bags of bloody clothing and women's identification in his trailer and one near-fatal attack on a prostitute he had taken back to his Port Coquitlam pig farm.

"The bigger lesson is we need better communication amongst police," said LePard, who also cited training andstaffing issues inside both the Vancouver police and the RCMP.

Many of the changes recommended in the report have already been implemented, he said, but "there is always more to be done to overcome barriers to effectiveness."

LePard also repeated calls for the province to call a public inquiry into the failed investigation. He had already publicly apologized in July for the mistakes police made in the investigation and the delays in Pickton's arrest that likely led to the death of more than a dozen women.

Pickton was eventually arrested following a 2002 search of the farm, and in 2007 he was tried and convicted of second-degree murder in the death of six women whose remains were found on the farm. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

In July, the Crown stayed first-degree murder charges against Pickton for the deaths of 20 other women because it was not possible for him to get a longer sentence. But after his arrest Pickton had told an undercover police officer in his cell that he had killed 49 women in total.

The B.C. NDP also voiced its support Friday for a public inquiry.

The party's public safety critic, Mike Farnworth, said he was deeply troubled by the police errors.

"An inquiry's important, not in terms of trying to find a scapegoat or be a witch hunt," said Farnworth. "But rather to ensure that we find those systemic failures, those policy failures, those resource failures, all those areas where mistakes were made and ensure that changes are put in place."