Lawyers for N.S. mass shooter's spouse say her case should prompt change within RCMP

WARNING: This story contains distressing details of violence and intimate-partner violence.

When Lisa Banfield first met the RCMP investigator assigned to interview her, she was lying in a hospital bed with a bruised body, a fractured rib and spine.

"She was having a hard time just moving several inches in the bed, so she was in pain," Staff Sgt. Greg Vardy would later say in an interview with the public inquiry tasked with investigating one of the country's deadliest mass shootings.

It was the afternoon of April 20, 2020, when the two first spoke. Banfield was recovering at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre in Truro, N.S., with her sister at her side. Her injuries had been inflicted by her common-law partner, Gabriel Wortman, with whom she had been locked in an abusive relationship for 19 years.

She was Wortman's first victim in his violent attack. But, as Vardy revealed to Banfield while taking her statement that day, she was far from the last. 

Her partner had killed 22 people, including a pregnant woman, in a shooting rampage that started in Portapique, N.S., on the night of April 18, 2020 and spanned five communities. Vardy told her the violence ended 13 hours later when police shot and killed Wortman.

"Imagine learning all those things at the same time on that sort of platform. And while you're being told this information, you're being asked to give more and help and do whatever you can. Of course you're going to do that," said Jessica Zita, one of Banfield's lawyers.

"That was the vein in which she first encountered the officers, who were nothing but cordial, kind and respectful to her and her family."

Banfield and her lawyers now allege that encounter with RCMP sparked eight months of manipulation. They claim police officers used Banfield's vulnerable state as a victim to gather information they would need to eventually charge her criminally, without making it clear she was under investigation or that she could consult her lawyer. 

Banfield hasn't done a media interview since the mass shooting. She has only answered questions for police, her own lawyers and the public inquiry, the Mass Casualty Commission. Her legal team is speaking with CBC News for the first time since it outlined concerns about police actions in its final submissions in September.

Public hearings ended last fall after 230 witnesses helped the inquiry examine how Wortman was able to obtain illegal guns in the U.S. and remain undetected during his shooting rampage as he masqueraded as a police officer. Part of the inquiry's mandate is also focused on the police response and the role of gender-based and intimate partner violence.

Banfield's legal team is hoping the Mass Casualty Commission's final report, due to be released on March 30, addresses what can be learned from her experience — including how police should treat victims of domestic violence. 

"Deception is probably the best word to describe, in simple terms, how I think she was treated," Zita said.

Eight months after meeting the RCMP in her hospital room, Banfield, her brother James and brother-in-law Brian Brewster were charged for supplying ammunition to Wortman. At the time, RCMP said none of those charged knew about Wortman's intentions.