Driving case acquittal leads to dust-up

Moments after a judge left a Regina courtroom, having found Christopher Alan Martyn not guilty of serious driving offences, the complainant in the case charged at the acquitted man.

As a deputy sheriff jumped between the two men, Jared Perrault raged at 49-year-old Martyn. In turn, Martyn goaded Perrault.

“I’m right here,” Martyn said. “Come get me, big tough guy.”

“Don’t do it,” the deputy sheriff told Perrault.

“You better run and you better hide,” Perrault told Martyn.

“I don’t run from anybody,” Martyn responded.

Perrault then confronted Martyn about his past conviction for manslaughter, relating to a 1991 vehicle-related incident in which an Oxbow garage owner was run down during an altercation: “You killed someone and you try and pull the same s--t again?”

The situation spilled into the hallway and, from there, onto the street. By the time Martyn was taken from the scene in a police vehicle for safety reasons, the incident had come to include deputy sheriffs, members of the local sheriff’s office and police.

No one appeared to have been injured.

Queen’s Bench Justice Darin Chow’s 39-page decision was provided in the afternoon, detailing the reasons Chow acquitted Martyn of hit-and-run and dangerous driving causing bodily harm for a Sept. 4, 2017 incident on Prince of Wales Drive. Perrault suffered serious injuries after he was hit by Martyn’s motorhome.

During the November trial, Perrault, then 37, described an incident in which Martyn cut him off, causing damage to Perrault’s mother’s car. He said he failed to get the other driver’s attention, so drove in front of him to stop him. He then got out to take photos of the motorhome and driver. He said Martyn drove at him and hit him.

Perrault’s leg was broken in two places and he suffered broken bones in his face, brain bleeds and a fractured skull, bruised ribs and injuries to his shoulder, lower back and knee. He said he continues to suffer from the injuries.

Martyn testified he didn’t know anything about cutting Perrault off and said the other driver came at him in a rage. Martyn said he saw something in Perrault’s hands, so tried to reverse his vehicle away. He said Perrault effectively caused his own injuries by jumping on the hood of the motorhome as Martyn tried to drive past him.

Martyn said he initially left the scene, but returned.

Chow said he found Martyn to be “a generally credible witness” with testimony consistent with other evidence. On the other hand, Perrault’s evidence that he wasn’t angry or aggressive at the scene didn’t accord with what two eyewitnesses described, the judge found.

Chow noted the complainant “chose to walk in the traffic lane as he approached the motorhome.”

“While I do not necessarily accept the accused’s claim that the complainant unexpectedly jumped on the hood of the motorhome as he attempted to move to the next lane of traffic and drive away, in light of all of the evidence, I am left with a reasonable doubt by it,” the judge wrote.