Lawyers made their final submissions this week as the Pender Harbour May Day assaults trial drew to a close.Closing arguments continued into Thursday as Coast Reporter went to press. Judge William Rodgers was expected to be reserving his decision for a later date, which had not yet been set.All five accuseds, Daryl Costello, Drew Johnson, Paul Johnson, Michael Webb and Daniel Wood, took the witness stand during the trial. In 2004, they were charged with allegedly assaulting camping longboarders with hockey sticks at a private property in Kleindale during Pender Harbour's May Day long weekend. The three-week trial continuation this month was put over from June 2005. They each now face four counts of assault causing bodily harm, two counts of assault with a weapon, three counts of assault and, with the exception of Wood, one count of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose. During the trial, two counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of assault were dismissed for each accused, along with Wood's one count of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, due to lack of evidence.Crown Counsel Trevor Cockfield was to present his closing argument Thursday, past Coast Reporter's press deadline.During defence closing arguments this week, both defence counsel - Greg Cranston, lawyer for the Johnsons, and Mitch Foster, lawyer for Costello, Webb and Wood - pointed out consistencies and inconsistencies in witness testimonies. Cranston's summation centred around raising a reasonable doubt over witness identification of accuseds, a self-defence argument and whether the Johnsons had operating minds - to prove an intent to commit an offence -after Paul was said to have been struck in the head with a bottle and Drew was also said to have been knocked unconscious.Cranston and Foster both argued the Crown's theory of assaults with hockey sticks being a joint operation of the five accuseds had not been proven.Foster said his clients had not headed out that night to fight but rather, in recapping the accuseds' testimonies, were out on dates. Also, he added, they had not gone straight to the private campsite and instead were at a local pub - the Johnsons travelling in one vehicle, Costello and Webb in another and Wood in a third - where they saw each other then heard separately about a bush party in the area."They had no specific plans of meeting each other," Foster said.Foster also referred to what he said appeared to be a big misunderstanding at the campsite. He also noted Wood had testified he walked away up the hill once the fights broke out. He recapped Costello's and Webb's testimonies that they left early on, that they wanted out of there so badly that they reversed out. Foster was to continue his closing arguments Thursday morning.Earlier in the week on Tuesday morning, Cranston made an application for the judge to recuse himself, or step down, from the trial, arguing the judge's comments overhead from a lunch conversation showed an apprehension of bias. The alleged comments referred to witnesses having trouble identifying the "bad guys" and also to the extra sheriffs watching closely for intimidation of witnesses outside the courtroom. After Cockfield argued the alleged comments did not show bias, Rodgers decided the comments were merely an explanation to a fellow judge of the main issue in the case, namely identification, and a comment on the fact that more sheriffs were brought in from out of town because of the notoriety of the case, the number of accused and the full courtroom. He found the comments did not show a bias and dismissed Cranston's application.At the end of the day Tuesday, Foster requested to appear in court as Webb's agent for the remainder of the trial, since Webb was needed for work in Alberta and would otherwise lose his job. After hearing from Foster and Cockfield in chambers, Rodgers let him go. Cockfield told Coast Reporter there is nothing in law requiring accused who are charged with summary conviction offences to be in court during the trial, so there would be no law on which to base an objection.The trial was expected to wrap up by the end of the day Thursday, and if need be, into today (March 24).
