VANCOUVER – The B.C. Court of Appeal has blocked an investigation by the province’s police complaint commissioner into the conduct of two officers who decided not to warn a pregnant woman about a potential murder plot in the days before she was killed.

Det. Const. Craig Bentley and Staff Sgt. John Grywinski received a tip in November 2005 about a murder-for-hire plot targeting 21-year-old Tasha Rosette, but they decided to investigate the tip rather than warn Rosette.

When they finally went to see Rosette five days later, she had been murdered.

An internal review by the Vancouver Police Department cleared the officers in 2009, but two months later the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner ordered the case to be re-opened after concluding such an investigation would be in the public interest.

However, the officers noted the law sets a 30-day time limit for such an order, and because the commissioner missed the deadline, the they asked that the order be thrown out.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has agreed with the officers, overturning an earlier B.C. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the investigation to proceed.