B.C.’s highest court orders forfeiture of three Hells Angels clubhouses

B.C.’s highest court has ordered the government seizure of three Hells Angels clubhouses, agreeing with the director of civil forfeiture that the properties would likely be used in future for criminal activity.

The Court of Appeal overturned a B.C. Supreme Court ruling from 2020 that allowed the notorious biker gang to keep its clubhouses in Nanaimo, East Vancouver and Kelowna and said part of the Civil Forfeiture Act relating to future crimes was unconstitutional.

Appeal Court Justices Mary Newberry, Christopher Grauer and Leonard Marchand said the findings of Justice Barry Davies were “tainted” because he used an elevated standard of proof and refused to admit facts from previous criminal cases against individual Hells Angels.

Davies “also committed palpable and overriding errors of fact in declining to draw inferences clearly supported by the record,” the three judges said in their 332-page ruling.

“We are satisfied that the inference clearly arises that members’ engagement in unlawful activities was facilitated through access to information gathered surreptitiously at the clubhouses, and protection from surveillance and detection by law enforcement offered by the clubhouses,” the Appeal Court ruling said.