‘Troubled’ counsel for OPCC resigns from Myles Gray hearing over obscenity

VANCOUVER — A long-awaited public hearing into the 2015 police-involved death of Myles Gray that finally got underway in Vancouver last week could be delayed by up to another year after the counsel for the proceeding resigned on Monday with “almost unbearable regret” over an extreme obscenity caught on a hot microphone.

Both the adjudicator hearing the case and the lawyer representing the family said they hoped the hearing, which is scheduled to last 10 weeks, will be able to proceed without more delays, more than a decade after Gray was beaten by Vancouver police officers and died in what a coroner concluded was a homicide.

Richard Neary, the lawyer for Brad Hickford, read a statement by his client saying he was “bewildered and troubled” by the recording of the obscenity that was captured on an audio stream of the hearing in Vancouver last Wednesday.

His statement said derailing the public hearing was “inevitable” and that Hickford felt “duty-bound” to protect the integrity of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which called the hearing.

“I need to reflect deeply and carefully on the contents of the recording, which I am bewildered and troubled by, and determine other appropriate steps I may need to take moving forward, but that is for later dates,” the statement said.

Neary initially said Friday that Hickford, who is being investigated by the Law Society of British Columbia, denied uttering the remark, but on Monday he said that while his client still could not recall making it, it was possible he had done so unintentionally.

Adjudicator Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey said the “unfortunate and vulgar” remark appeared to have been directed at either her or a female lawyer representing one of the seven Vancouver officers who have denied wrongdoing in the beating death of Gray.

But she said she had doubts about who said it and she hoped Hickford would be able to “return and finish the job that he started.”

“I remind counsel to remember my words at the outset of this public hearing, which were to treat each other with civility, respect and courtesy. And so I say, let’s get over it and get on with it and let the law society investigate the matter as they see fit,” she said.

“This hearing is in jeopardy of being adjourned, perhaps to the extent that it will now not finish in the 10 weeks allocated to it, which, practically speaking, means a further delay of approximately six to 12 months, given the schedule of counsel involved,” she said.

Arnold-Bailey outlined Hickford’s “extensive preparation” for the hearing, in a role that was “fundamentally important to the continuation of this hearing in the time allocated to it.”

Ian Donaldson, the lawyer representing Gray’s family at the hearing, told reporters Monday that the family would like to see the proceedings continue.

Donaldson said if this were a criminal trial, being heard by a judge alone, it would be allowed to continue despite supposed misbehaviour of counsel.

He said it was in the public interest to proceed as promptly as possible.

“In my respectful view, we ought not to elevate an unfortunate obscene comment, vulgar comment, to the level where we’re thinking that it’s more important than the public interest in getting to the bottom of what happened,” he said.

“It will only add to the pain for the Gray family if there’s a further delay.”

The audio stream of Wednesday’s proceeding had captured someone whispering that another person was “stupid” and calling them an obscenity sometimes used to describe a woman.

Neary said the term “is not necessarily always, or even more often than not, employed misogynistically.”

The hearing has been adjourned until Tuesday morning while the lawyers representing the police officers consider what position they will take on the issue.

Mike Shirreff, a lawyer for one of the officers involved, told Arnold-Bailey on Monday that “consideration has to be given to what happened after the comment was made,” referencing Hickford’s initial denial to the media that he said the word.

Shirreff said the impact of the comment goes beyond “discourtesy between participants in the hearing room.”

Gray’s family had sought the hearing after a discipline authority cleared the seven officers of misconduct in 2024.

A 2023 coroner’s inquest heard Gray died shortly after a beating by several officers that left him with injuries including a fractured eye socket, a crushed voice box and ruptured testicles.

It concluded that he died by homicide, although the coroner told the jury that the term was neutral and did not imply fault or blame.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2026.

Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press