Const. Milan Ilic leaves the Kelowna Courthouse after testifying in the March 2014 murder trial of Matthew Foerster.

Image Credit: Global Okanagan (with permission)

A former Vernon RCMP officer accused of lying on the stand during a murder trial won't be paid for damages after an investigation against him left him with PTSD and depression.

Const. Milan Ilic took the B.C. Justice Minister and the Attorney General of Canada to court, claiming the investigation was negligent and caused his post-traumatic stress disorder for both him and his wife. Both were Mounties covering the same area and both were given medical discharges in 2019 and 2020.

The RCMP unsuccessfully tried to fire him multiple times. The 2019 medical discharge was drafted by the RCMP after he was found to be unfit for duty because of his post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision, Justice Carla Forth found Ilic told the truth and the investigation against him was negligent, but that the RCMP nor any officers owed him any costs for his suffering.

"Const. Ilic told the truth in his court testimony... and at no time was his conduct disgraceful," she said. "He is innocent of the allegations made against him."

The case dates back to 2011, when Ilic was the first to respond to the murder of Taylor Van Diest in Armstrong.

He was directed to find 17-year-old Van Diest, who was thought to be somewhere near a railroad in Armstrong on Halloween night.

Ilic came upon her family and friends searching for her in the area, where a friend eventually found her beaten near the tracks.

She was still alive and Ilic removed his jacket to place it on top of Van Diest, who "clung to life," according to the decision.

A box of pens were in his jacket pocket, which he tossed aside in the process as he removed other important things he knew he'd need, but he did not include that detail in his police report at the end of the evening. The pens remained at the scene.

On Nov. 2, a bottle of Smirnoff vodka was found about 7 metres away from where Van Deist was found. It was seized as evidence, but never searched for fingerprints or DNA, despite requests to do so by another officer, according to the decision.

Van Diest had the DNA of her murderer, 28-year-old Matthew Foerster, wedged in her fingernails, so investigators found it wasn't necessary to examine the bottle.

Instead, Ilic was wrongly accused of drinking at the scene and tossing the bottle.

During Foerster's 2014 trial in Kelowna, Ilic testified about what he found at the scene and was asked about the pens and the bottle, according to the decision.

He denied drinking at the scene and tossing the bottle. He did admit that he tossed the box of pens when removing his jacket, but there was no mention of it in his Nov. 1, 2011, police report, nor during a Nov. 11 re-enactment.

The RCMP launched a code of conduct investigation in 2014, shortly after the Foerster trial, where Ilic was accused of giving false, misleading or inaccurate evidence.

"Ultimately, the code investigation ended when a second extension of time was denied by RCMP headquarters in Ottawa in July 2015," according to Forth's decision.

In his June 2022 Supreme Court civil trial, Ilic claimed the RCMP internal investigation was negligent and was the eventual reason both he and his wife left the service.

"This trial was Const. Ilic's first opportunity to fully confront the allegations made against him," Forth said in her decision, agreeing that Ilic never gave false evidence.

Despite that, she wasn't convinced Ilic's PTSD and depression was directly caused by the internal investigation against him and dismissed the case entirely in her Feb. 6 decision.

At the end of her written decision, Forth did "urge the defendants" not to seek costs against Ilic because he proved the investigation against him was, in fact, negligent.

"(Ilic) has suffered severe consequences of both responding to the murder scene and the code investigation and process," Forth said. "It is my hope that the plaintiff will now consider other types of interventions to help him regain his mental health, not only for himself and his wife, but also for his four young children. His children deserve to have a father who can be nurturing and can play a constructive role in their schooling and recreational activities."

— This story was updated with more information from the B.C. Supreme Court decision at 1:47 p.m., Feb. 8, 2023.

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