by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
July 7, 2004
Dar Heatherington, the alberta alderwoman who drew world attention last year, was convicted last week in Lethbridge of public mischief. She was found guilty of causing the police to enter upon an investigation after she made false claims of being stalked and receiving threatening phone calls and letters.
Heatherington first emerged on the world stage when the 41-year-old municipal politician disappeared from Great Falls Montana where she was attending to council business. The alderwoman surfaced three days later in Las Vegas and claimed that she had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted and taken to the Nevada city. She was charged by Great Falls police for lying to them but avoided criminal sanctions by agreeing to seek psychiatric help.
In what is arguably one of the dumbest headlines ever written, the Toronto Star reported the story under the title, "alderwoman guilty of threatening herself". Well, that’s not exactly what happened. although the Criminal Code makes it an offence to threaten "any person", it cannot possibly apply to oneself. If you threaten yourself and are scared, you can always withdraw the threat. Heatherington never did "threaten herself". What she was found to have done was to fabricate threats from an anonymous person whom she claimed was stalking and harassing her. There never was any threat. She made it up. That was the whole point of the criminal prosecution. That’s why she was charged. That’s why the judge said "guilty". The gist of the offence for which she was charged and convicted of, public mischief, is misleading the police and causing them to enter into an investigation that has no merit.
Heatherington was found guilty on June 28, the same day as Canadians went to the polls and the story with its silly headline appeared in the Toronto Star the next day. Perhaps the headline writer should be forgiven considering the late night that he or she undoubtedly had. and the staff at the paper would not have been happy campers in light of the fact that their boy Paul lost his majority.
There is no doubt that the Star, a newspaper that believes there is no problem too small that cannot be solved by government, wishes that there was a law making it illegal for people to threaten themselves. That will never happen.
and if it ever does, I’m going to kill myself.