Dead Ends by Paul Willcocks Page B

served thirteen years in the legislature and held some of the toughest cabinet portfolios. He even finished second in the 1973 party leadership race that crowned Bill Bennett as the successor to his father, the legendary W. A. C. Bennett.
    Twice married, the father of two children, McLelland was handsome, with dark hair, tanned skin, and an easy smile. His resonant voice betrayed his past work as a radio announcer.
    He had style and liked to have fun. For the Socred’s giant final rally for the 1975 election campaign, McLelland entered the Vancouver arena riding an elephant named Tina, despite party honchos’ fears of the havoc an out-of-control elephant could wreak on the crowd of supporters.
    After his night with the escort, McLelland headed off the next morning—February 27—to Government House, where he was sworn into a new cabinet post by the lieutenant-governor.
    He had no idea that everyone would soon be talking about his night of paid sex.
    *    *    *
    On May 6, Crown prosecutors charged Blakely with nineteen prostitution-related offences—procuring illicit sex, aiding and abetting, and living off the avails of prostitution. While prostitution itself was and is legal, all the activities around it are against the law.
    She went out the next day and hired a feisty young lawyer, Robert Moore-Stewart.
    As the charges hit the news, rumours about the huge police operation and high-profile clients started sweeping through the city. Victoria was a company town, and government was the company. Politicians and government employees made up a large part of the population. Gossip travelled fast.
    Moore-Stewart planned to use the most obvious defence.
    Blakely was just arranging appointments, he would argue. She didn’t know what McLelland and the other clients got for their $130. She was simply answering the phone and arranging meetings.
    When he learned police had found Bob McLelland’s Visa slip in the Top Hat files, Moore-Stewart saw an opportunity.
    He talked to Blakely and the escort who had sex with McLelland, and decided the cabinet minister could be a helpful defence witness.
    McLelland could testify that sex was never discussed with Blakely, supporting the argument that she was just arranging a meeting. The rest was up to the escort and the client.
    And it almost certainly crossed Moore-Stewart’s mind that Crown prosecutors might be a little reluctant to pursue a case if a cabinet minister was going to be embarrassed on the witness stand.
    Meanwhile, the buzz of rumours about high-profile clients was becoming a roar, with lightly veiled references to politicians paying for Top Hat sex in a popular newspaper column. Tales of a list of prominent clients and special protection for the powerful by police and prosecutors spread through the city.
    Reporters called Moore-Stewart throughout that summer, sharing what they had heard and pumping him for information. Prosecutors and police spokesmen and politicians stuck to a terse no-comment policy.
    Moore-Stewart heard another cabinet minister, Terry Segarty, had been with McLelland earlier that evening.
    He decided to go before a justice of the peace and obtain subpoenas to call Segarty and McLelland as defence witnesses at the November trial.
    He had to move quickly. MLAS could ignore subpoenas served less than forty days before a scheduled legislative sitting, and the Socreds had announced a fall session. (The law was intended to prevent unscrupulous political parties from using subpoenas to deplete the ranks of their opponents. It was a legitimate concern in the days when travel by horse or coach could take days, but an anachronism in 1985.)
    The justice of the peace accepted Moore-Stewart’s statement that he believed the two ministers might have useful information and issued the warrants.
    But the case was sensitive. No leaks, he warned courthouse staff. Absolutely none.
    He got home that evening, turned on the TV , and saw