This one seems like a no-brainer: The least the RCMP can do for the Hutchinson family is review the suspended with pay status of the officer involved in the fatal collision in Tsawwassen 30 months ago.

Twenty-one-year-old Orion Hutchinson was killed in October of 2008 when the motorcycle he was driving collided with a Jeep driven by off-duty RCMP Cpl. Benjamin Monty Robinson at the corner of 6th Avenue and Gilchrist Drive. Robinson has been charged with obstructing justice for his actions after the crash, namely heading home to pound back a couple of vodka shots before returning to the scene and blowing over the legal limit.

This devious behaviour prevented any type of impaired driving charge from being laid, although obstruction of justice is serious enough the RCMP immediately suspended him. Yet the force has done so with pay, which means Robinson, because of his self-serving actions on that fateful night, has essentially been on a paid vacation for the last two-and-a-half years.

I realize he's innocent until proven guilty, and I also recognize he has a family to support, but for the RCMP to not even take the time to reconsider the officer's status is wrong, to say nothing of disrespectful to the Hutchinson family.

The Delta police investigated the crash and determined there was enough wrongdoing on Robinson's part to recommend charges to Crown counsel. The Crown subsequently approved the obstruction of justice charge and then just last week a Surrey Provincial Court judge saw sufficient evidence in a preliminary inquiry to send the case to trial.

RCMP policy states officers are only suspended without pay "in extreme cases when it would be inappropriate to pay a member." It seems to me this case qualifies, but should the RCMP have any doubt, a review would clear it up.

Simply ignoring the situation, and the inquiries of the victim's family, isn't the right way to go, procedurally or morally.

Three separate entities of the justice system have had a look at the case and all have determined there is a degree of culpability on Robinson's part. Surely that should be enough for RCMP officials to revisit the file.

An officer is sworn to uphold the law, so when one of them is charged, particularly with something as significant as obstruction of justice, it's a blight on the entire policing community. The RCMP's handling of it -- or perhaps non-handling is a more accurate description -- is only compounding the problem.