Disgraced Vancouver detective allegedly gave advice on covering up stabbing: new documents

This is Part 2 of a two-part series on new revelations concerning the investigation into former Vancouver detective James Fisher. Part 1 is online here.

The first call the troubled young woman said she made after stabbing a man during a drug deal gone wrong was to celebrated Vancouver detective James Fisher.

She later told investigators that she'd driven to Burnaby's Lougheed Centre Mall in June 2015 with her then-boyfriend to sell some leftover suboxone, according to newly released court documents. She said the buyer started a fight with the boyfriend, pulling him out of the car and choking him, so she stabbed the buyer in the ribs, before fleeing in the vehicle.

"I didn't know what to do so I called Jim and he kinda just gave me some advice on how to hide it and get rid of the blood and put a car cover on [the car]," she told investigators with the Vancouver Police Department, according to a transcript of a 2016 interview.

In a later interview, she added, "I don't remember the whole conversation but he told me to burn out the blood with a cigarette and so I did that."

Fisher was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly providing false information to RCMP officers investigating the stabbing, but the allegations about the phone call were not included in the 2016 indictment on that charge and have not been tested in court.

They're contained within approximately 2,600 pages of documents about an investigation into Fisher's misconduct that were recently obtained by CBC after a four-year legal battle. The documents were all submitted in support of an unsuccessful appeal filed by Reza Moazami, the pimp who'd exploited the young woman.

Her identity is protected by a publication ban, so she is referred to as COM 2 in the documents, marking her as the second of four complainants that Fisher was charged with sexually abusing. All four had been trafficked before they met the Vancouver detective.

COM 2 met Fisher during his investigation into Moazami, a case that would earn him a Community Safety and Crime Prevention Award.

In her interviews with the VPD's professional standards section, COM 2 told officers that the day after the 2015 stabbing, she met up with Fisher to discuss the next steps.

"He said if he's ever learned anything in all the time that he's been a cop it's how to lie to other cops," she said in an interview with police. 

Fisher told CBC in an email that any allegations he advised COM 2 on how to hide the vehicle and get rid of the blood, or discussed lying to police officers, "are not true or accurate."

Fisher retired from the VPD in 2017. He would ultimately plead guilty to breach of trust for kissing COM 2 and one count each of sexual exploitation and breach of trust for kissing another young sex trafficking victim. He was sentenced in 2018 to 20 months in jail. 

Numerous other charges, including sexual assault against COM 2 and another two women, and obstructing justice in relation to the stabbing, were stayed after the guilty pleas. Those allegations have never been tested in court.