Drugs found in a car driven by a prohibited driver may have belonged to someone else, a judge in 黑料社入口 has decided.
Police pulled John Andrew Dunn over at a 7-Eleven store on Gordon Avenue in December 2021 and arrested him for driving while prohibited. He was also carrying a meth pipe.
Police searched the Ford Mustang Dunn had been driving and found fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine along with a second meth pipe in a bag sitting on the back seat, a 黑料社入口 trial heard.
In a January ruling posted on the BC Supreme Court website last week, Justice Michael Stephens concluded there was reasonable doubt about whether the drugs belonged to Dunn, who said he was borrowing the car.
Dunn pleaded guilty to driving while prohibited, but contested the drug possession and trafficking charges, which police acknowledged were based on circumstantial evidence, the judge noted in his ruling.
鈥淭he Crown submits that this is a circumstantial case and submits that Mr. Dunn鈥檚 guilt is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence,鈥 Stephens wrote.
But 鈥淢r. Dunn was not the owner of the Ford Mustang car.鈥
Dunn, now 41, was one of seven tenants living in his uncle鈥檚 house, about four blocks from the 7鈥慐leven, the trial heard.
鈥淗e testified on that date he asked another tenant if he could use her Ford Mustang to go to the 7鈥慐leven, and she said he could borrow the car,鈥 the judge wrote.
鈥淗e testified that at the time there were seven tenants living in the house he lived in, and everyone was using the Ford Mustang vehicle.鈥
Dunn testified he had noticed the bag, but didn鈥檛 look inside. He also admitted to using meth earlier in the day.
鈥淗is testimony, when considered in totality with the evidence at trial, leads to reasonable doubt about his knowledge of the contents of the Under Armour lunch bag,鈥 the judge wrote.
鈥淭he Ford Mustang was owned by another person (not Mr. Dunn), and I require more than his mere proximity to the bag in question to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew what was in its contents.
鈥淐rown has therefore not proven his possession of the substances in that bag beyond a reasonable doubt.鈥
