Photo: CTV News

A witness at the scene and the owner of the print shop where the attack took place have identified this man as Carleton Stevens.

A judge has found Carleton Stevens not guilty of attempted murder after shooting his pregnant ex-girlfriend in Vancouver last year.

CTV News reports, Angela Marie McDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services is outraged that the Surrey man is not being convicted, despite agreeing with prosecutors that Stevens had threatened to kill his ex, and fired the shot that struck her in the stomach, killing their unborn child.

“It's these moments when we have such an egregious version of male violence and we see the criminal system failing, that it is distressing,” said McDougall.

In her ruling, Justice Jennifer Duncan found Stevens broke into the East Vancouver print shop where his pregnant ex was hiding out and fired a single shot that hit her in the stomach, severing the umbilical cord and killing the fetus.

The judge said because evidence showed the bullet passed through the arm of print shop employee Taj Lovett before hitting the victim known to the court as J.Y., she wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that J.Y. was the intended target, or that Stevens was trying to kill her.

Justice Duncan theorized Stevens may have been aiming at Lovett, who had invited J.Y. to stay at the print shop with him.

“That discharge resulted in the complainant losing her baby which was notably also the accused's baby,” said Stevens' lawyer Chandra Corriveau. “And as a result of those circumstances and findings of fact, she was not able to conclude he had the requisite intent for attempted murder.”

“It is a constant reminder of how disappointing and how outrageous the criminal legal system is in addressing male violence, and particularly in talking about the use of weapons and when there’s all of these risk factors,” said McDougall.

Stevens has an extensive criminal history including a 2013 conviction for threatening to kill someone else.

“We know for a fact he’s done it before, so we can assess he will do it again. We can predict that quite easily,“ said McDougall. “Whether or not that will be lethal violence, we don‘t know.”

with files from CTV Vancouver