Meeting bikers a coincidence, Pammett testifies

OFF THE WIRE
By FIONA ISAACSON, EXAMINER COURT WRITER
Was Bob Pammett meeting with bikers?
Or was it a coincidence that nine members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang went to the same Brown St. home on July 24 when Pammett says he was looking at a room to rent?
The two-day hearing into the whether the 60-year-old con-victed cocaine dealer breached his conditional sentence from an old assault charge in Niagara wrapped up Wednesday.
Pammett testified he was sur-prised to run into members of the biker gang in the parking lot of Tim Hortons, at Lansdowne and Ashburnham, on July 24 around 1:30 p.m.
Under his two-year less a day conditional sentence that went into effect May 21, Pammett had Saturdays from 1 to 3 p.m. to shop for "food, medicine, clothes and other necessities."
Pammett said he was sup-posed to meet with Ross Silvester on July 24 about rent-ing his room at 639 Brown St. Pammett needed to move out of his mother's Lynch St. home because it was expensive to board his dogs, court heard.
Silvester, who also testified Wednesday, said he wanted to rent his room because he was going to jail.
Pammett said he arrived around 1:05 p.m., waited for 10 minutes but Silvester didn't show.
Pammett left to get his tires checked, on his yellow pick up truck, and stopped at Tim Hortons when he realized his money pouch was missing. When he got out of his truck to check, he testified that a biker approached him and shook his hand.
Pammett said the man was someone he had "seen in my tracks" but didn't know him.
"I see you(Crown attorney Jim Hughes)all the time but I don't know you," Pammett said.
Police were already watching the bikers at Tim Hortons after spotting them on Hwy. 115 when Pammett arrived.
Pammett said the bikers wanted directions to Clonsilla Ave. When he and the bikers left police stopped them on Lansdowne just west of Park St. to check their licences and reg-istrations.
Afterwards, Pammett testi-fied, he went back to Brown St. to look for his money and ran into Rory Vader, a known Outlaw biker associate. Pammett asked Vader if he knew where Silvester was and told him about the bikers being stopped. Vader went to see what happened, court heard.
When Pammett, who stayed behind, waited outside the house he saw the bikers drive north on Monaghan Rd, with Vader behind them waving for them to turn.
Pammett testified he fol-lowed them to catch up to Vader and give him a message for Silvester.
Eventually the bikers, Vader and Pammett ended up back at Brown St. and went inside before Pammett left, court heard.
Hughes said July 24 had noth-ing to do with looking for an apartment.
The bikers'destination was never Clonsilla, it was always Brown St., he said.
"Mr. Vader was trying to do what Mr. Pammett hadn't been able to do-bring them back to Brown St.," Hughes said.
"This isn't the most startling coincidence ever, it was exactly what was always planned."
Hughes said Pammett had plenty of opportunity before July 24 to see the house because police saw him there on June 23 and 24.
(Silvester testified he didn't show up because he forgot and never rented the room before going to jail.)
Defence lawyer Dave McFadden said his client wasn't doing anything inappropriate. He pointed to the testimony of Pammett's conditional sen-tence supervisor, MaryAnn Bakker.
She said she knew Pammett wanted to move and told him he had to look for a new place dur-ing the Saturday shopping time.
Pammett also isn't prohibited from associating with bikers and he could have at any time at his house, McFadden stressed,
"The biker issue, with the greatest respect, is a red her-ring," McFadden said.
Police also never found a wal-let or money on Pammett when he was arrested, he said.
Madam Justice Esther Rosenberg is to deliver her judgment Dec. 10.
fisaacson@peterboroughexaminer.com