Former Kelowna trucker jailed for threatening witnesses to get $300K after suing RCMP

A former Kelowna trucker, who was jailed for threatening witnesses during his trial, still made off with more than $300,000 in compensation after he successfully sued the RCMP for tasering him.

Bradley Marvin Degen made headlines in 2023 when a BC Judge awarded him $317,000 for pain and suffering, saying that the two RCMP officers involved should not have tasered him during his arrest.

However, a recently published court decision shows that while Degen was suing the RCMP for damages over the tasering, he was also threatening witnesses and was jailed for it.

According to a Dec. 11 BC Supreme Court decision, Degen threatened two witnesses and three people involved in the court proceedings while his civil suit was ticking through the court system.

“Criminal charges were laid, and convictions entered, as a result of those incidents,” Justice Murray Blok said in the decision.

Degen was sentenced to five months’ jail for uttering threats and other unknown offences.

The decision says some of his threatening emails were sent after his trial had begun.

There is no explanation as to why in the decision, but publication bans were put in place in several of the criminal proceedings.

In February 2024, more than six months after being awarded the $300,000, he was jailed for threatening three individuals involved in the case. The threats had taken place around the same time as his trial.

“The sentencing judge concluded that the appropriate sentence was one year in jail on each of the counts, to be served consecutively, but he reduced each of those sentences to nine months based on the totality principle.  With credit for time served, (Degen) was required to serve a further 483 days in jail,” the decision reads.

Despite doing jail time for threatening people, two months ago, Degen sent more threatening emails as lawyers finalized the costs of the legal proceedings. 

“These emails generally had to do with remarks about the corrupt legal system and its corrupt participants, but they also referred to ‘friends’ of his and his family who know where most of the people involved in this case reside and who have said they will ‘dispense with some justice on those involved in due time,’” the Justice says.

The incident dates back to 2016, when Degen was sleeping in the back of his semi-truck outside a Surrey lumber yard.

A neighbour called the police, believing Degen might be intoxicated, and two officers arrived and shone their flashlights through the cab window.

Degen woke up, rolled down the window a few inches and told the officer they’d got the wrong guy. He went back to bed and admitted he might have sworn at them.

The officers smashed the windows and then tasered him.

The former Kelowna trucker had wanted $1.7-million in compensation, but the RCMP offered $335,000.

He refused, and the matter went to a 20-day trial.

During the trial, Degen gave false evidence in what the judge called a “self-serving attempt to knowingly provide false evidence in order to enhance his claim.”

Regardless, the judge ultimately awarded him $317,120.

In the 42,000-word decision, there is no mention that Degen was jailed for threatening witnesses.

The current court decision focuses on who should pay the legal bills.

Normally, the losing side pays, but the courts do have the discretion to change the rules if there’s been litigation misconduct.

However, while threatening witnesses may appear to be a good enough reason for not paying his legal bills, the RCMP’s lawyers don’t argue that there should be an outright denial of paying Degen’s legal costs.

“One cannot overstate the seriousness of this behaviour: this was outrageous misconduct of the worst and most extreme kind. It was behaviour that sought to strike at the core of the justice system. It was misconduct that deserves – indeed, requires – both severe rebuke and harsh sanction,” the Justice says. 

However, the Justice says Degen has been punished for his behaviour.

“(He) spent a significant time in jail.  He was also ordered to complete periods of probation of 18 months and three years, respectively, with the latter order also involving curfew restrictions and electronic monitoring for 18 months of that probation period,” the Justice says.

To refuse to pay his legal bills would now count as “double punishment,” the Justice says.

Justice Blok says the fact that Degen is still sending threatening emails to lawyers the day before the current hearing is “abhorrent” and “reprehensible behaviour.”

However, the Justice says an appropriate punishment for those threats is to deny him any legal costs for the current court hearing.

Ultimately, the Justice ruled the RCMP will have to pay his court costs and legal fees for the original trial.