Aaron Webster

Aaron Webster (June 1959 - November 17, 2001) was a gay man living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, who was beaten by a group of men close to a gay cruising area in a wooded part of Stanley Park near Second Beach on November 17, 2001. According to reports, the youths came across a nearly naked Webster and chased him to a parking area, where they beat him with baseball bats. After the beating, Webster was found unresponsive in the parking lot by his close friend Tim Chisholm, and died within minutes in Chisholm's arms.

Although some media called Webster's killing the first gay-related murder in Canadian history, much like the Matthew Shepard incident in the United States it merely attracted more widespread media attention than most earlier incidents.

The coroner's report listed the cause of Webster's death as "a blow to the left side or back of the victim's neck. This blow caused a tear to the vertebral artery which resulted in a massive and rapidly fatal hemorrhage at the base of the brain."

A march and vigil was organized by Little Sisters Bookstore co-owner Jim Deva, and took place the day after the killing, with hundreds of people marching through the streets of downtown Vancouver toward the site of Webster's death. Romilly handed down the maximum sentence permissible under the Act: two years in a youth detention centre and a third year under house arrest. The second young offender was also found guilty and sentenced to the same penalty, although the judge in that trial did not rule that the case constituted a hate crime.

Justice Mary Humphries ruled Cran guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to six years in prison, but acquitted Rao on the grounds that inconsistent and conflicting testimony made his role in the attack unclear.

Parole of Ryan Cran

Cran, who was incarcerated at Matsqui Prison in British Columbia, applied for parole on April 3, 2007, after serving two years of his sentence. The Canadian parole board denied his parole, as he had been caught drinking vodka in a minimum security prison and was deemed to still be a risk to society.

Cran was paroled on February 5, 2009. Spencer Herbert, the provincial MLA whose Vancouver-Burrard riding encompasses Stanley Park and Davie Village, subsequently called for the province to create a provincial telephone hotline for people to report gay bashing incidents and threats, as well as the appointment of a community victim services worker to investigate gay bashings.