The 10 days reserved for the May Day assault trial at Sechelt provincial court definitely won't allow enough time to finish the trial, according to Crown prosecutor Trevor Cockfield.
Five Gibsons men are on trial, Daniel Wood, Daryl Costello, Drew Johnson, Paul Johnson and Michael Webb. Each is charged with 14 assault and weapons charges related to an attack on a skateboarders' campground in Pender Harbour during the 2004 May Day festivities. The men are accused of using hockey sticks as weapons.
The trial began June 13 and is scheduled to finish June 28. But on June 15, the seventh day of the trial, Cockfield said he still had nine civilian witnesses and almost as many RCMP officers waiting to testify.
The prospect of a further delay is disturbing to Cheryl Jensen, a Pender Harbour paramedic whose son Brandon suffered a severe concussion during the assault.
Already more than a year has gone by since the incident, Jensen said, and "no one can move on" while they await the verdict in the trial.
"The victims continue to be victims," said Jensen outside the courthouse.
She praised the witnesses who have come forward to testify. "I can totally be proud of my community," she said.
"These kids are doing the right thing."
Jim Macneil is a Pender Harbour resident who has been attending the trial most days, although he is not related to any of the victims. He is concerned about the sense of intimidation in Pender Harbour.
"Why this took a year is outrageous, and now this is going to be stalled again," said McNeil. "What's going to happen in the meantime? The kids all go to Ruby Lake to swim, and now they can't go to their own swimming holes."
The defense lawyers, Greg Cranston and Mitch Foster, have been cross-examining witnesses at length, often raising inconsistencies between the witnesses' original statements to police and their testimony at the trial.
The extensive cross-examinations and frequent objections from the defense have made the trial longer than expected.The court has heard contradictory testimony about the identity of the various assailants. Witnesses have said as many as 12 men were part of the attack on the campground, but only five men are on trial. And several witnesses have identified young men in the public gallery of the courtroom, men who are not charged with these crimes, as being among their attackers.
In a trial where many of the witnesses had difficulty describing or recognizing their attackers, the testimony of Heather Smith was significant because she definitely identified four of the accused men, although she did not see them assault anyone.
Smith knew the accused men well from spending some of her teenage years in Gibsons. She named and pointed out the Johnson brothers, Costello and Wood and said they were all part of an uninvited group that crashed the skateboarder's campsite.
"I walked up to Daryl Costello and asked him why they were here. He said they were here to party," she said.
Later, when another vehicle pulled up with hockey sticks in the back, Smith said she confronted Costello again.
"I asked him again why they were there. He said they were there to fight."
As she ran from the site with a friend, Smith said, she heard screaming and the sounds of people being hit.
"Stick on bone contact makes quite a big noise. It's like a crack, almost," she said.
Smith said a week later, she ran into Costello, Paul Johnson and another man, whom she identified as "Dave," at Ruby Lake.
"They were talking about what had happened on May Day, cracking jokes," she said. "[Costello] was saying how it was funny, how Pender was going to get their ass beat."
Her brother, Scott Smith, testified that he stayed and watched the fight unfold.
Smith described the attackers forming what he called a "dummy circle" where five or more men would kick one person repeatedly.
"One guy would get dragged in, and guys would just start kicking him. Just like you're a rag doll, totally overcome, you just go into the fetal position and try to protect yourself," he said.
He described how one man hit Brandon Jensen in the back of the head with the blade end of a hockey stick, using a two-handed baseball-type swing.
"[Jensen] was just gushing blood. It was all over him. He was shaking and saying he was cold I used a longboard as a makeshift stretcher, wrapped my T-shirt around his head and gave him a blanket so he wouldn't be cold," Smith testified.
Other boarders also suffered injuries that night. Scott Murray showed the judge a scar on the side of his face and said he also suffered bruised ribs and a cut on the bridge of his nose. Jody Willcock, a 30-year-old teacher who won the longboarding race in 2004, testified he saw a friend on the ground being repeatedly kicked and hit with hockey sticks. Isaac Tierney, a boarder from Kimberly, said he was knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of his head as he tried to help an injured friend away from the scene.
The five accused men showed little emotion during most of the testimony, but occasionally hid grins behind their hands or whispered and giggled together.
