When five Canada Revenue agents and two uniformed Saanich police officers arrived with a warrant to search his home on a September morning more than three years ago, Hal Neumann was shocked.
The 60-year-old Saanich businessman, who was born in East Germany and escaped with his family to refugee camps in West Berlin, had grown up in fear of the state, but said he never imagined he would be treated like a criminal in his own home in Canada.
Neuman has launched a civil suit against the Canada Revenue Agency for negligence and breach of his privacy rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in connection with the 2005 search. The trial before a jury is now underway in B.C. Supreme Civil Court.
"The average person would say, 'It's Revenue Canada. I can't fight that,'" said Neumann. "So I'm going out on a limb. I've spent a lot of money and it could cost me a lot more. I have a problem with the fact that innocent people in this country can be terrorized in their own homes by the CRA and the police."
Neumann is seeking general and special damages in compensation for the harm the search caused him.
Last week, the jury heard that Neumann was never the subject of a CRA investigation, but an innocent third party. In 2004, his business, Vantage Equipment Company Ltd., which buys and sells large mining equipment around the world, successfully passed a GST audit.
During the audit, however, the CRA learned that Leah Bonnar, an Alberta woman Neumann did business with, had received commission cheques from him. Bonnar became the focus of a CRA tax-evasion investigation.
Neumann testified he gave the auditor his original documents concerning Bonnar. Those documents, which were photocopied and returned to him, were the same ones later sought in the search warrant.
Meanwhile in Edmonton, CRA investigators prepared search warrants for Bonnar's house and Neumann's house, where he had a home office. A B.C. Assessment Authority notice, obtained by the CRA, shows the property is a single-family dwelling owned by Neumann's wife, Maureen Rivers. That information was not passed on to the Alberta judge who granted the search warrant.
Neumann was at home on the morning of Sept. 7, 2005, when he saw the police cars driving up the small cul-de-sac. When he answered the door, CRA investigator Simi Dinhsa told him she had a warrant to search his home for records regarding the Bonnar investigation.
Neumann said he asked why the CRA was accompanied by police. He said Dinhsa didn't reply, but the police officer said in most cases, everyone in the house is arrested. "Does that mean you're going to arrest me?" asked Neumann. He said the officer did not reply.
Neumann said he complied with orders to pull out all the cash he had in the house, and took a computer expert upstairs to his office to download anything he wanted, leaving six strangers on the lower level of his home. The computer expert rifled through files and papers on his desk, he said. The search lasted several hours.
Neumann's lawyers, Steven Kelliher and Chris Funt, argued that the Canada Revenue Agency was high-handed in its dealings with their client. Kelliher suggested they could simply have asked Neumann for the documents. But CRA agents have testified that the search at Neumann's house followed local practice, which includes bringing uniformed police officers. They said agents don't distinguish between home offices and commercial premises when conducting a search.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe, who performed a psychiatric assessment, testified that Neumann, whom he described as a rule-abiding man, has suffered from depression, paranoia, post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares since the search.
Today, the jury will hear closing arguments from the CRA lawyers and Kelliher.
ldickson@tc.canwest.com
