My name is Mike Kober. I’m Bobbi Jo Pancierra’s boyfriend. Bobbi felt that her story should initially be told through a third party as she is too emotionally attached to it. This is a story that needs to be told. It’s about a girl who was repeatedly assaulted by her boyfriend and the Winnipeg Police Services (WPS), the crown and the province did nothing to protect her. It’s a story of abuse not only by her boyfriend but by the Winnipeg Police Services and by the justice department of Manitoba . This is a story of the WPS covering up their mistakes, the crown abusing their authority and the justice department trying to reduce the damage to their system.

Between 2003 and 2005 Bobbi Jo was assaulted on many occasions. When the WPS were called out; they did nothing. They never investigated the incidents, never pressed charges nor did they red-flag her house. Her boyfriend harassed her and her family and often threatened to kill them.

On one occasion he threatened to urinate on her. In that incident he tried to suffocate her and she bit his finger as he held his hand over her mouth and nose. She bit his finger and escaped to a neighbour’s house, covered only in her bedroom blanket. The neighbours called the police and her assailant also called 911 five minutes before. She was brought to the hospital by the police, bandaged and x-rayed and then charged with assault because he called 911 before her. She was deemed the primary aggressor and was incarcerated overnight because she wouldn’t sign a notice to appear in court.

premier@leg.gov.mb.ca

Related to that incident, she was barred from returning to her home the crown because as he stated, “She pissed me off.” The reason he was pissed off is because she insisted on having her assailant charged. When they didn’t charge him she complained to the justice minister. Bobbi Jo had to go in front of a magistrate to have the crown prosecutor overruled; calling the affair “Ridiculous.”

While she was at the Winnipeg remand centre she was asked to sign a promise to appear, she refused. Rather than handling her as a trauma victim she was yelled at and thrown in jail. She was refused her medication or a nurse to attend to her so she suffered in pain all night. The next morning she was released to her mother, still not having signed any papers. The video tape of the incident mysteriously disappeared.

Bobbi Jo tried for many months to keep her abuser away from her. She was frequently told by police that if she tried to contact him she would be arrested. He, on the other hand continued to harass her by phone and threatened to kill members of her family. She tried to tell the WPS that he was harassing her but they did nothing to stop it. He kept harassing her and when she reported the phone calls, they did nothing.

Bobbi has been assessed as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by several doctors. She has been receiving treatment for the affliction. She has had two operations caused by the assaults. She visited a chiropractor on one occasion and he reported her condition to the police. They did no follow up. She needs her right leg casted in order to clear up the damage caused by the assaults. The Victims of Crime department has done nothing to assist her. They claim she was the primary aggressor because she bit his finger.

When I first met her in 2006 I asked her to talk about some of the assaults. Each time she tried she would break down and begin crying. She has had to sell her home to pay the debts that she incurred while she was off work after the assaults and the PTSD.

She had tried to go to several victims services but none offered to help her. The problem she encountered is that all victims services are funded by the justice department. Because she was misjudged as the primary aggressor, rather than the victim, she has been denied her rights as a victim. The justice department needs to be broken up to deal exclusively with justice. The remainder of the department needs to fall under another portfolio such as human resources.

What is needed is to acquire those internal police investigations. An investigation needs to be done to look into police dealings with B. R., her abuser. Another investigation needs to be done to outline all the mistakes the police, the crown and the justice department made in Bobbi Jo’s case. The list will be long. The justice department needs to be broken up; moving victims services and any other functions not related to justice away from that department. Bobbi Jo is demanding that the former crown who messed up, be fired in spite of the fact that he has now been promoted to judge.

Bobbi Jo was prolific in keeping notes and gathering paperwork that backs her case. She has boxes of paperwork with her notes, police notes and reports, hospital reports and all kinds of correspondence. A classic case in point: after one assault she told the police that she had forgotten a phonebook which aggravated her assailant. It was in the police notes and their report. Only after approaching LERA did the police reports indicate that she forgot a clipboard. Bobbi Jo had told only LERA that it was a clipboard not a phonebook that she had forgotten. In the trauma of the incident she couldn’t keep her mind straight. How would the police have known it was a clipboard unless LERA coached them.

My view is that because Bobbi Jo was able to keep notes and gather all her paperwork, it exposed the WPS and justice department to their mistakes and cover ups. I know of no one that could keep such details. All of Bobbi Jo’s arguments are substantiated with documentation. If a professional investigator took all this material and dug into this case further there would be a lot more exposed.

The public needs to know the damage that has been done by the WPS and justice department. Anyone who has heard this story cannot believe such anarchy, abuse of authority and arrogance can exist in this era. Bobbi Jo has contacted the UN with her case and she was told to exhaust all her options before returning to them. Those options are quickly coming to an end. This story needs to be told