Former Kelowna mayor charged with sexual assault
Posted December 7, 2022 3:21 pm.
Last Updated December 8, 2022 1:11 pm.
Former Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran is facing one charge of sexual assault, the BC Prosecution Service has announced.
It’s in relation to an incident the service says happened in May of 2022 while Basran was the sitting mayor. Kelowna RCMP conducted the investigation, and Nelson Police Department independently reviewed the findings before they were sent to the special prosecutor.
A special prosecutor was assigned to Basran because Assistant Deputy Attorney General Peter Juk “considered it in the public interest to do so.”
Brock Martland, a Vancouver Lawyer, was assigned to avoid any improper influence in the investigation because Basran was an elected official, the service says.
Basran served as mayor of Kelowna from 2014 to 2022, following one term as a city councillor.
Before his time in politics, he was a television reporter for CHBC-TV, now known as Global Okanagan. He also spent time as a realtor.
Basran will make his first appearance in Kelowna Provincial Court on Jan. 24, 2023.
