The release of new videos showing the Nova Scotia mass shooter’s longtime partner reenacting what she saw and experienced the night of the rampage is raising questions about why police charged her in the weeks after the shootings.
The Mass Casualty Commission on Wednesday released footage of Lisa Banfield walking an RCMP investigator through what she remembers happening in Portapeak, NS, on April 18 and 19, 2020, including how her partner beat her and tries to handcuff her.
The re-enactment was filmed in late October 2020, six months after Gabriel Wartman killed 22 people while driving an RCMP mock-up car.
A few weeks after filming the reenactment, Banfield was accused of supplying the shooter with ammunition.
The Crown ultimately decided there was no public interest in taking the case to trial and instead referred the matter to restorative justice. Upon completion, the criminal charges will be dropped.
“I have concerns about the timing and concerns about the fact that she was charged in the first place,” Banfield’s defense attorney, James Lockyer, said Thursday.
Erin Breen, a lawyer representing three sexual assault and justice groups – Avalon Sexual Assault Centre, Wellness Within and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund – said she had concerns about the sequence of events.
“It’s always been a very worrying issue from our point of view. My clients were quite outraged when they learned Ms Banfield had been charged,’ she said.
“It’s a systemic problem when a survivor comes forward and shares information about their survival behavior and ends up being charged in a criminal investigation.”
Banfield said she prayed for the shooter
In the videos released Wednesday, Banfield explains how the couple were celebrating their 19th anniversary when they started fighting.
After she turned in for the night, Banfield said the gunman pulled back the bed covers and assaulted her, kicking her into the bedpost. He then dragged her through the cottage, which she noticed was already doused in gasoline, and set the building on fire as soon as they got outside, she told the investigator.
Banfield said the gunman dragged her into the garage and tried to handcuff her.
“Looking at his eyes, there was nothing there,” she said. “It was just so cold.”
Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet, Dawn Gulenchin, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulenchin, Shawn McLeod, Alanna Jenkins. Second Row: John Zall, Lisa McCulley, Joey Weber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien, and Jamie Blair. Third row from top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joan Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corey Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC)
Banfield was able to escape – shoeless – and hide for the next several hours, terrified that he would find her, as she heard gunshots.
Medical records released through the inquest show Banfield spent five nights in hospital after sustaining fractured ribs and vertebrae as well as extensive bruising and abrasions since the night of April 18.
Other documents released Thursday by the commission cover how the gunman used violence, emotional abuse and other controlling behavior toward Banfield over nearly two decades.
Push for more police training
Megan Stevens, a lawyer for Women’s Shelters of Canada, said she worries Banfield’s experience will discourage other women from going to the police.
“I’m concerned about the message people are getting because sometimes the violence is such that people have to call the police; there is no one else to step in to protect them,” she said.
“But in this case, there seem to be multiple failures of that, and the message that I think unfortunately women will get if they connect those dots, if they’re in abusive relationships themselves, is that I don’t know if this is the right option for me.”
WATCH | Inquest hears from NS mass shooter’s husband about years of abuse, control
Inquest hears from NS mass shooter’s husband about years of abuse, control
The public inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia released dramatic, never-before-seen video and testimony from the shooter’s wife on Wednesday. She described years of abuse at the hands of the shooter, including the night he killed 22 people.
Breen said she hopes the commission’s work will at least spark a conversation about how police and the justice system should approach intimate partner violence.
“You see it quite often in situations where women defend themselves in a violent conformation, they end up being accused of assault themselves,” she said.
“The current pro-arrest, pro-indictment, pro-prosecution policy removes any choice or power from the survivor of abuse.
Stevens also said he hopes police will receive more training on how to recognize and better respond to violence, including controlling behavior.
Lisa Banfield’s running shoes, lost by Gabriel Wartman on the run, are shown as commission counsel Gillian Hnatiou presents a foundational document on the abusive behavior Wartman directed at Banfield, his estranged wife, during the Mass Casualties Commission’s inquiry murders in rural nova scotia on april 18 and 19, 2020 in Halifax on Wednesday, July 13, 2022 Wortman, dressed as an RCMP officer and driving a replica police car, killed 22 people. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
“Intimate partner violence doesn’t just involve isolated acts of physical violence, there are other ways that controlling, coercive behavior can really keep people in situations and out of control,” she said.
“Unfortunately, there is not enough training to prepare officers who are on the front line. Especially since in some of these rural communities, where you don’t have specialists, you have generalists.”
Banfield felt “betrayed” by the filming of the reenactment
In an interview Banfield gave to a lawyer for the commission in April this year, she said she felt assaulted by the filming of the reenactment.
She said she wanted to meet with RCMP Sgt. Greg Vardy at the cottage in Portapeak so he could see where her trainers had been left and where she had hid during the night. It was the first time he had returned to the cottage since the night of the rampage.
“I’ve heard people think I’m lying about what happened, like if I go there for the first time, I want somebody to see this, you know, find my shoes, find that tree, so you can find the things that I’m telling you they happened,” she said.
But Banfield said that when she went to meet Mountie, he brought a small audio and video crew with him.
“I felt betrayed,” she said.
Her sister Maureen later joins the interview. She said Banfield was not in the right mental shape to do a reenactment.
“That’s the thing that I feel is probably the deepest betrayal of the manipulation, that it’s actually being investigated without our knowledge,” Maureen Banfield said.
“It was horrendous and I think it was very damning for her mentally and it’s, to me, I think the most striking thing that happened in terms of her well-being and putting her first.”
Banfield was not under investigation at the time of filming
An RCMP spokesperson said Banfield was not under investigation at the time the reenactment was filmed.
“Playing the victim/witness video was related to a period of time where Ms. Banfield was the victim of multiple crimes. Given that she was not under investigation, it would not be appropriate to afford her rights that are afforded to a person who is under investigation for a crime or who has been arrested,” said Cpl. Chris Marshall.
“Lisa Banfield was given the cause of her arrest, the right to counsel and a police warning as required by law during the investigation in which she is charged with ammunition-related crimes.”
Add Comment