There is no road rage quite like backroad rage.
The story of the failed prosecution of Alphonsus O’Connell involved allegations of many of the familiar elements of road rage, and not just by him, but also his alleged victim: honking, tailgating, brake checking, forcing someone off the road, brandishing a firearm.
It also had vastly conflicting accounts about what actually happened that call to mind the old joke that anyone driving faster than you is a maniac and anyone slower is an idiot.
The fact that it happened on a dirt road in the wild Newfoundland woods with no witnesses other than the participants added a mere wrinkle to the decision of Judge Wayne Gorman of the Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, who heard the trial in Corner Brook and issued a ruling Dec. 18.
In the end, O’Connell, the elderly accused, beat the criminal charges against him of dangerous driving and uttering threats. But he took a long way getting there.
It began, as these things sometimes do, while people were out spreading moose estrogen on trees.
Vaughn Keeping and his wife Tammy Skinner were out on a covered all terrain vehicle in September last year, in the woods near Benoit’s Cove, a little harbour near Corner Brook on Newfoundland’s west coast.
They were checking their trail cameras and spreading the estrogen, which hunters use as an attractant. They decided to call it a day when Skinner accidentally got some on her clothes. No sense driving around the woods on a four-wheeler smelling like a moose in heat.
They were driving around on what the judge described as a series of old “woods roads” that are unpaved, rough and often narrow, not designed to easily accommodate passing.
Alphonsus O’Connell was also in the area hunting moose with his wife, Deborah O’Connell, but they were in a pickup truck.
Keeping and Skinner came up behind on the ATV. That much was commonly agreed.
As Keeping testified, O’Connell’s truck was going very slow. Keeping gave his horn a tap, expecting the truck to pull over and let him pass, but a few of those opportunities came and went, and Keeping concluded that the driver was deliberately staying in the middle and was refusing to allow the pass.
Instead, Keeping saw an opportunity, put his hand on the horn, and went for it. At trial in Corner Brooke, his wife, Skinner, said she saw O’Connell laughing as they passed, and that she believed he was steering them toward the roadside, though the judge said her account was “not as dramatic” as her husband’s.
Keeping’s account was definitely dramatic. He testified that, after passing the truck, he stopped in front of it and approached the truck’s driver door. He said O’Connell got out with a rifle in his hand, which he was loading as he stood behind the truck door.
Keeping testified he walked toward him, on edge, intending to grab the rifle if it were pointed at him.
“Are you going to shoot me? Are you serious?” Keeping said.
“Get the hell out of here,” O’Connell replied, according to Keeping.
Skinner, Keeping’s wife, did not turn to look back and watch this confrontation until she heard the word “gun,” by which point she saw O’Connell was putting the rifle back in the truck.
Keeping recorded some of this with his phone camera, and took a picture of the truck’s plate. He testified that, when they set off driving again, O’Connell’s truck followed close behind him. Keeping pulled over, O’Connell drove on. Keeping and Skinner stayed a while, drove home, and called police in the morning.
A screen shot in evidence shows O’Connell, an elderly man in glasses and a baseball cap, standing behind his truck door. No rifle is visible, but neither is his right hand.
The basic allegation was that Keeping tried to pass the truck, and O’Connell tried to force him off the road, then threatened him face to face.
O’Connell and his wife told a different story, that this ATV came up behind them honking, and kept honking as they looked for a place to pull over. O’Connell testified he yelled at the other driver to “slow the f–k down.” His wife said the same but omitted the vulgarity. She said her husband got out and moved the unloaded rifle that was between them, but did not brandish it or load it, and after the interaction, the ATV took off “like a bat out of hell.” Both couples denied any further interaction.
Judge Wayne Gorman found the O’Connells “impressive” witnesses. “They testified in a direct and clear manner. Their evidence was consistent, reasonable and rational. There is no logical or reasonable basis upon which I can reject the evidence provided by Mr. and Ms. O’Connell. It is not obviously false nor exaggerated.”
“In this case, the nature of the conflicting evidence and the credibility of Ms. and Mr. O’Connell makes it impossible for the Crown to meet its burden. I am left with a reasonable doubt as to whether Mr. O’Connell drove in a dangerous manner or threatened Mr. Keeping. Accordingly, he is acquitted of the two charges laid against him,” Gorman wrote.
He added a footnote of criticism of the police for interviewing Keeper and Skinner in the same room together, within earshot of each other, and that Skinner vocally commented on some of what Keeping was saying.
“This is very poor police practice,” Gorman wrote. “Witness should not be jointly interviewed. Doing so can taint their evidence. Unfortunately, what occurred here is not an isolated incident.”
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