New trial for man convicted of assault with bottle

The B.C. Court of Appeal has ordered a new trial for a man convicted of using a broken bottle to assault another man in a Victoriaarea pub.

In a ruling posted online Monday, a three-judge panel concluded the trial judge erred when he failed to allow an adjournment for Christopher Lawrence Williams after the accused fired his lawyer just before the start of the trial.

In January 2014, a B.C. Supreme Court jury found Williams, 48, guilty of one count of assault with a weapon and one count of aggravated assault.

Justice Ronald McKinnon, the trial judge, sentenced Williams — who represented himself at trial — to three years in prison, reduced to two and a half years after giving him credit for pre-sentence custody.

On the appeal, the Crown agreed that McKinnon … had wrongly refused the adjournment.

The judge, who called the attack “vicious and unprovoked,” said the incident happened after the victim, only identified in the sentencing ruling as Mr. Kiss, and a friend were socializing in the pub and had played a game of pool with Williams and two of his friends.

McKinnon said that for “reasons that make no sense whatever” Williams concluded Kiss was “hitting” on his friend’s girlfriend and attacked him with a broken bottle. Kiss was treated in hospital and required surgery.

At trial, Williams claimed Kiss was the aggressor and was accidentally cut while in a tussle with Williams.

Williams, who had prior convictions, including dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, mischief and other assault convictions, argued on appeal that McKinnon was wrong to have failed to grant him the adjournment on the opening day of the trial.

The accused told McKinnon he’d fired his lawyer and needed time to retain new counsel and claimed there were disclosure issues he wanted to pursue.

McKinnon said there was nothing to persuade him that the matter should be adjourned to permit Williams to conduct “some sort of farflung investigation” about alleged breaches of his rights and ordered the trial proceed.

On the appeal, the Crown agreed that McKinnon, who retired from the bench in 2015 after serving as a judge for 25 years, had wrongly refused the adjournment.

In his reasons for judgment, B.C. Court of Appeal Justice David Frankel said McKinnon failed to take notice that there had been no prior adjournments in the trial and there was nothing to indicate Williams had discharged his lawyer as a ploy to delay the trial.

Frankel also found the judge had not considered that Williams’s intention to claim that he was not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder had increased the complexity of the trial.

“Mr. Williams’s position was that his counsel had failed to follow his instructions to pursue certain matters,” Frankel wrote. “It was wrong for the judge to have summarily concluded those matters lacked merit based solely on his view of defence counsel’s competence and Crown counsel’s statement that there were no outstanding disclosure issues.”

Williams was impeded by the fact that he was required to proceed to trial without a lawyer, Frankel said.

Justice Harvey Groberman and Justice Laurie Ann Fenlon agreed with Frankel.