The Vancouver Police Department has offered to apologize in the death of an aboriginal man who froze in an alley where he was dumped by a police officer a decade ago, says the man's cousin.

Peggy Clement said Friday that a police liaison officer called her at her home in Elsipogtog, N.B., to say the department would like her to come to Vancouver on Jan. 29 for an apology from the police chief.

Frank Paul, 48, was found dead of hypothermia on Dec. 6, 1998, in the alley where Const. David Instant left him a few hours earlier.

'I'm wondering why do they want to apologize? I feel they're still hiding something.'— Peggy Clement, Frank Paul's cousin

Paul had been picked up for being drunk in a public place and taken to the city drunk tank but then-Sgt. Russell Sanderson told Instant to remove him from the facility, where the chronic alcoholic was a regular.

A year ago at a public inquiry into Paul's death, Instant tearfully apologized for leaving Paul in the alley, saying he'll wear the scars of what happened to the man for the rest of his life. The inquiry wrapped up last year and an interim report is still to come.

Clement, who testified at an inquiry into Paul's death, said Friday that she's leery about the apology offer because she said the department originally lied to her by saying Paul died in a hit-and-run accident.

"I'm wondering why do they want to apologize? I feel they're still hiding something," she told the Canadian Press.

Son also invited

Police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said she couldn't confirm whether the department will be apologizing to Paul's family.

"There is something in the works for the end of the month," McGuinness said, although she couldn't provide details.

Clement said the department also invited Paul's son, Sheldon Augustine, to hear the apology.

"They said they wanted to apologize to the family," she said of the phone call she received last month.

Clement said she planned to call the officer back to say she doesn't wish to hear an apology before the interim report of the public inquiry is released.

Inquiry report on hold

Retired judge William Davies, who presided over the inquiry that wrapped up last spring, ruled a year ago that three prosecutors must testify about why the two officers weren't charged.

Davies said during the inquiry that the Criminal Justice Branch remains under a cloud a decade after Paul was found dead and that prosecutors need to explain their decision.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge backed Davies's ruling, but lawyers for the Criminal Justice Branch appealed, saying prosecutors don't have to justify their decisions in public.

Davies's final report is on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, but an interim report will go to the provincial cabinet before being publicly released. There is no date for that interim report.

A police video tape shown at the inquiry revealed Paul was dragged, soaking wet and drunk, out of the facility and into a police wagon before he was dumped in the alley.