The Crown sought certiorari with mandamus in aid to quash a preliminary inquiry judge’s order discharging a young person charged in connection with a fatal shooting.
The application judge found that the preliminary inquiry judge committed jurisdictional error by failing to consider the whole of the circumstantial evidence and by assuming the trier of fact must accept or reject a witness’s evidence in its entirety.
The evidence, including the respondent’s actions in pursuing the victim and tripping him immediately before the shooting, was capable of supporting an inference that the respondent aided the principal offender with the requisite mens rea for murder.
The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to commit the respondent to trial for first degree murder.
The discharge was quashed and the matter remitted to the preliminary inquiry judge with a direction to order committal for trial.
