The lawyer for the second man tried after a Prince George motel resident was seriously injured in an August 2022 machete attack said Friday, Jan. 31 there is no evidence his client committed break and enter or aggravated assault.
Terry La Liberté, acting for 49-year-old Kerridge Andrew Lowley, told BC Supreme Court Justice John Gibb-Carsley during the third day of closing arguments that the Crown’s case was “rife with reasonable doubt in terms of what happened in that room.”
That room was unit 255 of the Econo Lodge City Centre Inn where resident Arlen Chalifoux emerged with grisly injuries to his right arm after an altercation with Lowley’s co-accused Dakota Rayn Keewatin, 31.
La Liberté said Lowley was in the suite for a brief six or seven seconds, did not “get up close and personal” with Chalifoux and did nothing other than “check it out and apparently say ‘stop!’"
La Liberté recounted key moments of the surveillance video shown in court during the evidence phase, which ended Dec. 5. The footage showed that, at 5:31 p.m., as they waited outside the door, Keewatin handled a bottle of water and, briefly, a mobile phone from his front pocket. Lowley held nothing.
A minute later, a man exited the room and walked down the nearby staircase. Then Keewatin knocked on the door at 5:32 p.m. and knocked again 30 seconds later. The door opened at 5:33 p.m. with a puff of bear spray. Keewatin dropped or tossed aside the water bottle in the hallway and entered. Lowley, who was pacing and rubbing his eyes, followed, but exited within six or seven seconds.
Empty-handed Lowley immediately walked down the exterior hallway toward a staircase. Keewatin then left the room carrying a machete, which he dropped in the hallway near the top of the stairs, exited the building and entered a black pickup truck’s passenger seat and took off his shirt. Lowley approached the truck and got in the driver’s seat. They drove away at almost 5:35 p.m.
While detectives found a lot of blood on the passenger side of the truck, La Liberté said it was not tested to match it with any of the participants.
“That absence of that evidence, in my respectful submission, is deadly to the Crown's case,” La Liberté told Gibb-Carsley.
Further, he said the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lowley, who has no criminal record, had the intent to aid or abet the commission of an aggravated assault. “Merely being present at a scene does not establish intent.”
“The chaotic nature of the events suggests that any involvement by Mr. Lowley could have been simply incidental rather than criminally intentional,” La Liberté said. “In fact, he's there, he didn't do anything until he was called in.”
The judge asked whether Lowley could plead self-defence, but La Liberté said his client’s involvement was so brief that it would not apply
“He walked in because he's there to apparently help his friend. But he didn't do anything.”
Closing submissions began Jan. 28 with Crown prosecutor Andrea Norlund arguing that surveillance camera footage and Chalifoux’s testimony were enough to find the two men guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Norlund said the “only reasonable conclusion” is that Keewatin and Lowley were the same people who entered Chalifoux’s room and participated in the assault.
Neither of the charged men testified during the trial.
Keewatin’s lawyer, Jason LeBlond, said in court on Thursday, Jan. 30 that exercising the right not to testify “shouldn’t be interpreted to his disadvantage.” LeBlond also cast doubt over Chalifoux’s testimony, calling it unreliable and inconsistent.
La Liberté went even further, labelling Chalifoux a “disreputable, drug-dealing liar.”
