More panhandling charges dismissed

A Hamilton court has dismissed two more tickets for panhandling against a man who has amassed $25,000 in unpaid fines.

Dwight Perry had two more charges under the Safe Streets Act for soliciting a person waiting for public transit withdrawn Tuesday.

This is in addition to another charge that was dismissed last month.

According to a transcript of the court appearance, the prosecutor said there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction.”

Perry’s lawyer, Peter Boushy, said he’s working to get about eight other tickets quashed, arguing his client and other vulnerable people in the area should never have been ticketed in the first place.

Perry and others have been ticketed simply for sitting, cap out, near the MacNab bus terminal, he said, adding that they weren’t actually soliciting people waiting for transit.

The 60-year-old was among the witnesses who testified at the trial of four Hamilton police ACTION officers accused of writing false tickets in November 2016, where he said he had received 285 tickets over the years from police.

The Hamilton officers were found not guilty.

But the case highlighted issues with criminalizing homeless and vulnerable people.

Boushy said he has several clients who’ve been ticketed like Perry and he’s working to see all charges withdrawn.

And then, if all goes well, he intends to go back and appeal all the past convictions for unpaid tickets.

“These guys look so forlorn, how are you giving them tickets?” he said of the police practice of ticketing vulnerable people downtown.

Boushy said he’s meeting with a deputy Crown on Friday and hopes all of Perry’s charges will be withdrawn.