In the photo: Tanya Watkins was shot in the arm in June 2013 when somebody discharged a firearm in the upstairs of the Brocklehurst home in which her family was living. Watkins and her family lived downstairs and the bullet passed through the upstairs floor and struck her. Watkins was sitting with her daughter at the time of the shooting. The accused shooter, Trevor Wilvers, has had his charges stayed due to a judge ruling witness statements are inadmissible.
The Crown has stayed charges against a man accused of shooting through the floor of a Brocklehurst home and hitting a young mother in the arm causing serious injury.
The charges were stayed after a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled as inadmissible a witness statement to RCMP implicating the accused.
Trevor Wilvers was charged with unlawfully causing bodily harm, criminal negligence, assault and uttering threats. Following the Friday, Feb. 7, ruling by Justice Sheri Donegan, Wilvers walked over to his lawyer, Don Campbell, and hugged him.
Wilvers remains in jail on unrelated charges.
Donegan ruled that statements to police by Trevor Newton and another woman in the Brunner Avenue home at the time of the shooting in June 2013 cannot be used as evidence against Wilvers.
Both later recanted, saying in court they didn’t remember anything. Newton had to be arrested and brought to court to testify.
The Crown sought to enter the police statements, arguing the recantations were an attempt to cover for Wilvers. It argued unsuccessfully that Newton’s statement to police was done to the highest standard — videotaped — and he accurately described details that were corroborated by other witnesses and physical evidence at the scene.
But, Donegan said Newton blatantly lied in court, noting that, despite testifying he had a complete memory blank from that day due to a drug-and-alcohol binge, he testified Wilvers was not in the home at the time and didn’t handle a gun.
“Mr. Newton, in the course of these proceedings, directly lied to the court,” Donegan said.
Donegan ruled that because Newton so readily lied in court, he may have fabricated the statement to police implicating Wilvers. She said it was obvious in comparisons between Newton’s courtroom demeanour and his demeanour on the police videotape that he was intoxicated with drugs or alcohol at the time he talked with police.
For those reasons, Donegan said, she cannot allow Newton’s statements to police implicating Wilvers as the shooter.
As a result, the Crown no longer had sufficient evidence with which to continue the trial.
