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Penticton  

Firearm trial in jury's hands

An 11-person jury heard closing arguments Thursday morning in the BC Supreme Court trial of Cody Wilson in Penticton.

Wilson is charged with four firearm offences in connection to an incident in the Denny’s parking lot on Oct. 7, 2016.

Police pulled Wilson out of his truck that afternoon, arresting him with two handguns after receiving a phone call from a distraught woman in the bathroom of the restaurant. Police say they found a gun in his front pocket, and one under the front passenger seat.

In his closing, defence lawyer Michael Patterson told the jury his client was set up by his girlfriend, the 911 caller, and that police testimony about one of the guns was either mistaken or a lie.

“This was either a sloppy investigation, or maybe the officers thought we have a slam dunk case here — so the things that should have been done, didn’t,” he said, referring to a lack of fingerprint evidence.

“The doubts are littered right throughout this case,” he proclaimed.

Wilson and his girlfriend had travelled from their home in Princeton to Penticton so she could attend a court date. After court, the pair stopped at Denny’s so she could use the washroom, which is when the police were called.

Patterson alleged she planted the gun under the passenger seat, and that police lied about finding a revolver in his pocket.

Crown prosecutor Andrew Vandersluys, in his closing, dismissed the defence’s story as unbelievable.

“Unless the two police officers are lying, the only reasonable and logical result is that Mr. Wilson had the silver firearm in his pocket,” he said.

He pointed to video of the arrest that showed officers yelling “secure it” while pulling something out of Wilson’s pocket. The defence argued that something was actually a collapsible baton.

“Police do not say ‘secure it’ about batons,” Vandersluys said, adding it's a phrase police use when dealing with firearms.

Judge David Crossin spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon delivering his charge to the jury, who now have Wilson’s fate in their hands.



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