Back in early June, I posted a stylized photo of an undercover operative of RCMP E Division  who was the chief operative (undercover agent) in gaining the confidence of Wilf Hathway which eventually led to an elaborately staged confession scenario in which Wilf is lured by promises of large sums of money to the Fairrmont Hotel  to meet Mr. C, the boss who is so big he can be referred to only as a letter.

Hathway had previously been made aware of the importance of Mr. C after a staged "almost meeting" had been set up at Hi's Steakhouse.  He went  there with Martin for a steak, and was abruptly turned around and ushered out.  They couldn't go in because Mr. C. was there, and once you have seen him we have to either secure your loyalty forever or  kill you, Martin told Hathway,  acting out a B-movie script from the days of Jimmy Cagney.  

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let's go back a few years to when Denver Bruce Crawford was murdered in Saskatoon.  Crawford was  Hathway's landlord and Hathway had stumbled home dead drunk in May, 1998 to discover the brutally murdered body of this 80 year old man, called 911, was investigated by Saskatoon police and eventually released.

Of course there is more to this and it will come out in court that Hathway was a hopeless drunk, addict and petty criminal who stole from his own mother to maintain his disreputable lifestyle.

Never mind.

By 2003 Hathway had turned his life around.  He had gone through a complete detoxification program where, after a year of being clean and sober he had been given an experimental treatment for Hep C.  The treatment worked.  He became a student at Kamloops College and was close to receiving a degree.  He had married and fathered a daughter, Shayla, for whom he devoted his life.  He was working as a janitor at the college and transporting Shayla to daycare, living on a limited budget as he waited to take exams for his degree when Saskatoon Police and RCMP "E" Division began their carefully orchestrated sting.

Before this could begin, they had done a careful study of Hathway and Saskatoon had cut a cheque to the mounties for $25,000, the required down payment before the profile could be completed.

How did they approach Hathway?  Well they couldn't meet him in a bar.  He didn't go there any more.  What to do with a reformed alcoholic who is putting back together a shattered life?

A female under-cover knocked at his door.  She had car trouble and could he help?  Well, of course he could.  This led to an introduction to her boyfriend, undercover agent Martin, and this led to tempting  Wilfred Hathway with those things their profile had revealed would be most effective.

Most of the early "bonding" took place in bars and strip joints.  Once Wilf was off the wagon, he was off.  

He was gradually sucked into activities he was aware were criminal -- taking a suitcase on the bus to Edmonton where he met with different operatives.  Al Haslett, who was one of the main operatives in setting up Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns was a bit player in one of the petty scenes.

Martin must have been pretty certain Hathway would go along with anything he suggested -- after all, he seemed grateful for small cash rewards and clothes he had been provided -- and then there was a surprise.  They asked Hathway to go across the border to get some guns and he refused so they had to do it themselves.  Shortly afterwards they sprung the big one on him -- the offer of $25k to drive a truck to Montreal, with the implication that it was loaded with illegal weapons.  This in 2004, three years after 9/11.

Martin has told the Saskatoon police, who have in turn told crown prosecutors,  that Hathway  confessed several times to the murder of Denver Crawford.  It was simply their misfortune that the recording equipment they had set up suddenly malfunctioned during every one of these alleged confessions. 

The one they finally extract from him is full of false details which do not in any way correspond to the details of the initial investigation. 

As we unfolded this story, we were able to interest the media in it.  All three major networks are interested in this story and have spoken with Hathway.

I expect this is the reason I got the call from a polite sergeant named Brian in Vancouver who was concerned that Martin' identity had been revealed on the website.  He asked me to take down a certain photo and I took it down.

He then told me that the names of Haslett and Shinkarek were subject to a publication ban in both Canada and the United States.  Actually her asked me if I knew.  How could I possibly know?  I had picked their names up from the Seattle newspapers which reported that they had testified at the trials of Rafay and Burns.  They felt free to tell lies in an American court and traded on the stellar reputation of the RCMP to get onto the record material which was gained by means which are absolutely illegal in the United States.

I have now been warned about the court-ordered publication bans and I believe that the courts were deceived in issuing them.  Not only do I feel no obligation to respect these orders; as a citizen I feel it is my duty to expose them.  If the court has made such orders then it is the court which will have to decide whether the orders were properly obtained.  We expect that this will play out as the Crown continues to press its illegal case against Wilf Hathway.

We would remind them all that in the Clayton Mentuck case in 2001, the mounties were granted a degree of latitude in that the operatives were given one year to get into another line of police work before their identities and names were protected from publication.

Martin and the other mounties who went after Wilfred Hathway have had their year.  And a few weeks' grace.  
--Sheila Steele, July 19, 2001

This regards our success in informing the public about illegal actions of their under-cover operatives. Full sermonette to follow shortly. (The graphic is from the little tracker and was made this morning before noon.)

Again today

Yesterday

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. --William Cullen Bryant

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Who we are:

Publisher Sheila Steele

Co-founder: Richard Klassen

New: injusticebustersblog. Participate!

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

More Sermonettes

 

early commentaries mixed in with news reports

2001

January: Legal Treachery to keep Dueck's lies safe

September: Hatchen and Munson trial

2002

March, 2002 -- Gay Bashing still a legal sport in Saskatoon -- Even when it turns to murder

First conscious sermonettes

2003

 

Feb. 1: Where we stand

Feb. 15, 2003: Has Saskatchewan learned anything?

March 1: Connecting the dots

March 23, 2003: From Micro to Macro

March 25, 2003: About libel and malice

March 27 : Gangs of Saskatoon: the police and prison guards

April 28, 2003: The Naked Truth

May 5: How low will they go?

May 15, 2003: Come clean Calvert, Cline!

May 30: Still smearing Milgaard - defamation is alive and well on the lawn of the Regina legislature and Precendent has been set as we reclaim our institutions

June 11, 2003: --Eric Cline carries on a corrupt tradition

Nov 7: Courage -- the only reward is justice

November 20: Just following orders

November 24: Mayor Atchison, community policing and graffiti

November 25: Michael Jackson

November 30: Corrupt officials must be severely punished: otherwise they just keep on putting the administration of justice in disrepute!

December 1: Christmas comes early for injustice warriors

December 4: Wide open Saskatchewan?

December 16: Crawling through the tunnel of justice since 1991

December 24: The Crown keeps right on breaking the law

December 30: Who will find justice under their tree?

 

2004

 

January 1. 2004: Unprecedented publicity and Happy New Year

January 8, 2004: Malice still afoot

January 10, 2004: Shame and mugshots

January 14, 2004: Telling more truth about the undefamable: McKillop and Quennell, the static duo

January 17, 2004: Fifth Estate returns and A working class hero is something to be

January 22,23, 2004: Justice is still prevailing -- it is just taking longer and Bits and pieces are now coming together to tell the story of the century

January 27, 2004: Telling the truth about the undefamable, restoring reputations to the defamed.

February 5, 2004: Negotiations and strategies: getting an intransigent government to remedy its damage

February 10, 2004: How many lawyers does it take to ruin a province? and Lawyer continues to treat people's lives as a cruel game: monopoly?

Febrary 16, 2004: Calvert is not King Arthur

March 29, 2004: Counting down to the damages trial

April 16, 2004: The internet, the courts and now the movies -- We will so what it takes to get justice

May 1, 2004: If Frank Quennell is any example of what former Justice Minister Chris Axworthy called "evolving," Saskatchewan is ready to kiss justice good-bye!

May 27, 2004: Some observations on Saskatchewan and justice

June 7, 2004:Media coverage of Monique Turenne's story illustrates journalistic laziness

June 8:, 2004 -- The police not only failed to serve and protect Don and Lorna Smith and their children but set them up for false charges and community shunning

September 2, 2004: A tale of three cops: Dueck, Gobeil and Schinkel -- with an update on how they get away with criminal obstruction of justice

November, 2004: Wilfred Hathway, Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns -- RCMP stings offensive to community standards

November 11, 2004: Rogue Platoon? Identifying the rotten apples in Saskatoon Police Service and why we need a full public inquiry into our whole justice system

November 28, 2004: Can Justice Minister Quennell take a few more steps? The Prosecutors' office is still harbouring crowns who put the administrative of justice in disrepute

November 12, 2004: Saskatchewan Justice in chaos: The Stonechild report suggests it is.

November 28, 2004: The price for being a good judge or a good prosecutor

December 30: When the government interferes with the judiciary, we know a Police State is a dangerous possibility (The government appeal of the Klassen/Kvello decision)

 

2005

 

Jan 1, 2005: Chewed up digested and spit out

Jan. 5, 2005: More on chief Sabo

February 18, 2005: Tunnel vision: Darren Koehn, Wilf Hathway and Leon Walchuk

March 2: Fixing the system: Time to quit talking and implement previous commission recommendations

March 19, 2005 : Injustice as ShowBiz