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People use their phones to photograph Vancouver Police horses deployed during the 2011 Stanley Cup riot.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

One in four Stanley Cup rioters being monitored for compliance with court orders are in breach of their conditions, Vancouver's Integrated Riot Investigation Team says.

Since September, 2012, the IRIT has been monitoring 42 individuals as part of its compliance program, which seeks to ensure that convicted rioters adhere to conditions set out in sentences and suspects stick to release conditions while awaiting trial.

The compliance program is part of the pledge Vancouver police made the day after riots broke out when the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final in 2011.

Eighteen rioters have been investigated for breaches and the Crown has, to date, approved a total of 14 charges against 11 rioters for breaking conditions. Of the 11 that will be charged for breaking conditions, only five have already been convicted by the courts for crimes committed during the riot, while the rest are awaiting trial.

During a news conference Wednesday, Vancouver police Superintendent Dean Robinson told reporters that in a recent spot check of rioters, IRIT investigators "were disappointed to discover that about 25 per cent of them were violating orders that included curfews, house arrests and no-goes to certain parts of the city."

The details of each rioter's court order differ, but many are under some combination of house arrest, nightly or weekend curfews and restricted access to different parts of Vancouver. Detective Constable Raj Mander, co-ordinator of the IRIT's compliance-monitoring program, said he spends about 30 hours a week liaising with probation officers and partner law-enforcement agencies, such as the RCMP and local departments, to ensure that even those rioters living outside the Lower Mainland are frequently checked. Only six of the 42 people being monitored live in Vancouver.

Constable Mander also said that his officers have been slowed down by a lack of help from rioters' families. Police often get "the run-around" from parents of youth when trying to confirm reports of breaches by rioters being monitored.

"We want to hold these people accountable, but we also want to make sure that their parents and families hold them accountable as well," he said. "But in this case, especially with the youth, it can be frustrating."

The Crown has approved 586 charges against 194 people, but cases have been slow to go to trial because many of the accused do not live in Vancouver, presenting considerable logistical challenges to rounding them up and investigating their cases.

Supt. Robinson said that the statistics probably do not reflect the full extent of the problem. "While we find these numbers disturbing, we strongly suspect that if we had the resources to look more closely at the problem that we would find that the numbers are even higher," he said.

The IRIT will continue to decrease in size and resources as more riot suspects are charged and brought before the courts, but Supt. Robinson said Vancouver police will "see this through all the way to the end."

"We would like to expect that after all the work the investigators have done, all the commitments that a variety of police agencies have made, everything that the community has put up with, all the good work the Crown has done, that after it's all said and done that either on conviction or on release awaiting trial and sentencing that people would take these things seriously," Supt. Robinson said.

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