A Trail man, charged with the murder of a local senior, was in the Rossland courthouse this week for a preliminary inquiry.
Joel Anderson appeared in person on Wednesday, to face proceedings into his second-degree homicide charge in the death of Harold Paddock, 78, also of Trail.
There is a court-imposed publication ban on these latest proceedings.
Read more: Trail man charged with murder
The purpose of the preliminary inquiry is to determine if there is sufficient evidence to set the matter down for trial before a Justice of the Superior Court.
In practice, the Inquiry is used to test the strength of the Crown’s case.
Its purpose is also “to protect the accused from a needless, and indeed, improper, exposure to public trial where the enforcement agency is not in possession of evidence to warrant the continuation of the process.”
Anderson’s homicide charge stems from an act which occurred on August 22, 2017, in downtown Trail.
That morning, Greater Trail police responded to calls of a “man down” in the middle of Bay Avenue near Highway 3B.
Officers arrived on scene to find the unconscious victim, now identified as Mr. Paddock, laying in the road and bleeding from his head.
The senior was transported to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital where he died about a month later.
Anderson was initially charged with assaulting Paddock, and then in January of 2019, the charge was upgraded to murder.
He has been in jail on the strength of other charges related to an alleged violent crime spree through Trail that morning.
Anderson, who was 25 years old at the time, was charged with arson after a Shaver’s Bench home went up in flames in the early hours of Aug. 22.
In addition to arson and break and enter into the Trail home, police charged him with numerous other offences (unrelated to the senior) that included assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats.
Note: Correction made to original story in that Anderson, in fact, appeared for a preliminary inquiry and not a preliminary injunction as previously reported.
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