Victim Jared Bear. Photo courtesy Facebook.
A surprise plea was entered this week for impaired driving that killed an 11-year-old boy on Muskoday in 2014.
Monday morning was supposed to be the outset of Gordon Morris Crain’s trial, but instead he entered a plea to impaired driving causing death.
The case dates back to July of 2014 when Jared Bear was out biking with a group of youths. As they neared the Muskoday bridge, so did the car Crain was driving.
Nearly three years later, there is no agreed statement of facts between the Crown and defence, which hints at some of the difficulty the two sides had at coming to a resolution without trial.
Lawyer Mary McAuley said there were legal issues involved because this case related to prescription drugs.
“This wasn’t your typical impaired where somebody was grossly intoxicated with alcohol,” she said.
There were more than five pre-trial dates before the trial proper was set to proceed.
Defence lawyer Mary McAuley said Crain never intended to go to trial, saying “defence had been negotiating a resolution right from the start.”
She added that “Gordon didn’t want to put the family through this and he felt bad at the preliminary hearing as well. The Crown was playing videos of the young witnesses that were there and Gordon didn’t want the kids to go through that.”
She said the sensitivity of that preliminary evidence is part of the reason they almost immediately proceeded to a consent committal to a higher court.
Crain has been out on bail since August of 2014. He initially signed an agreement to live with his sister in Saskatoon, and to be electronically monitored 24 hours a day.
McAuley says other counts which include dangerous operation causing bodily harm and death, criminal negligence causing bodily harm and death, and impaired driving causing bodily harm will be withdrawn at Crain’s June sentencing.
The agreed statement of facts will also be ready at the sentencing, as well as a pre-sentence report.
At that time, Crain will have an opportunity to address court.