First court appearance for Prince Rupert RCMP member on driving charges from 2017 incident

The first court date related to last year's motorist/pedestrian
incident involving an RCMP member took place this morning

The 9:00 AM court listings for Wednesday marked the first date on the court calendar related to a motorist/pedestrian incident from last year, a late night situation which saw a car being driven by an on duty member of the Prince Rupert detachment of the RCMP strike a pedestrian on a downtown street.

Corporal Jeff Easingwood's lawyer as well as Crown Counsel were in attendance at the Market Place court house today, speaking to the one charge of driving without due care and attention.

The case dates back to March of 2017 when a Prince Rupert resident, Ronald Sanford, while using a crosswalk in the 800 block of Second Avenue West was struck by the police vehicle driven by the Corporal. The incident took place in the late evening hours of March 25h.

Mr. Sanford was hospitalized in Kitimat for a short period of time due to injuries suffered from  that incident, with his recovery period extending a number of weeks past his hospital stay.

The case file was first investigated by the Independent Investigation Office which delivered its report in January.

The file was then forwarded to the Crown, that after a review by the BC Prosecution Service which made its recommendations on the file last month.

Today's proceedings found the case moved forward on the court calendar to June 6th, that to allow both Crown and defence counsels to review the case further.

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