Not guilty
Jury acquits O’Leary man in dangerous driving causing death case
Gregory Stuart Collicutt has been found not guilty of dangerous driving causing death. The 12-member jury in the case announced shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday, that it would not be convicting the 27-year-old O’Leary resident.
There were loud exhales from a small group of Collicutt’s supporters who were in the courtroom when the decision was announced. Once the jury was dismissed and the case closed, Collicutt turned from his seat beside his lawyer, Peter Ghiz, and gave his mother a long hug.
Ghiz said that, given the evidence presented in the trial, the jury made the right call.
“I thought it was an appropriate decision.”
The trial has been in P.E.I. Supreme Court in Summerside since Sept. 11.
It took about four hours for the jury to reach its conclusion. Members had been sequestered since Monday morning.
Collicutt was charged following a two-vehicle collision on Oct. 9, 2015, in Central Bedeque.
The car Collicut was driving, a 2008 Chevy Impala, collided with a 2000 Toyota Echo at the intersection of Route 1A and Route 10. The driver of the second vehicle, Dorothy Mae Mayhew, 67, of Lady Fane, was killed.
There were no witnesses to the crash. Collicutt told the RCMP early on that he couldn’t remember anything about the collision.
He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and suffered serious injuries, including various broken bones. He still walks with a limp.
Over the course of the trial, the jury heard evidence that on the morning of the crash, Collicutt had travelled to Borden-Carleton to visit Kate Collicutt. However, the visit was unexpected and she was out of the province.
Collicutt left Borden-Carleton and travelled towards the highway on Route 10. Something happened as Collicutt’s car approached the intersection with Route 1A that caused him to shoot through the intersection without stopping at between 95 km/h and 117 km/h.
Mayhew was traveling on the highway, returning home from a hairdresser’s appointment in Summerside.
A data recording device recovered from Collicutt’s vehicle showed the relative speed of the car at the point of impact and that the gas pedal was fully engaged, as well as other data. That device was a key piece evidence for the Crown and Ghiz spent most of the trial trying to raise reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. He questioned the RCMP’s handling of the recorder and called a witness, crash reconstructionist Jason Young, who provided an alternative explanation of what might have happened. Young said the data pointed to a “textbook case” of a driver accidentally hitting the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.
The Crown, which was represented by John Diamond in this case, can still appeal the jury’s decision.
Diamond declined an offer to comment.