![]() ![]() Though the identity of the accused is an issue, the Crown says there are sufficient eyewitness accounts and video evidence to back up the testimony of the key witness that Lehl stole a trailer and improperly hitched it to a stolen van and drove only minutes before the trailer became unhitched from the van and fatally struck De Pledge. Lehl has pleaded not guilty to a handful of counts including criminal negligence causing death, failure to remain causing death, possession of property obtained by crime and two counts of failing to comply with bail conditions. #A thief in the night trailer driverShe went on to say that though Pasiecznick’s had “shortcomings of memory” coupled with credibility and reliability issues, the witness was clear saying the driver was Lehl and “it was the two of them responsible for abandoning the van.” “It would be quite the coincidence, if a motorcycle like this and a van that they’re associated with happen to show up shortly after the collision,” Mountjoy said. Lehl was arrested four days later, after police conducted surveillance and spotted the van at a Brampton address frequented by both parties.Ī motorcycle similar to that used by Lehl and Pasiecznick is also seen riding away from an address where the van was presumed to be cleaned. No fingerprints or DNA were found in the van. The Crown said the accused attempted to cover his tracks by cleaning the van, dumping the hitch and removing the stolen Quebec plates used to disguise the identification of the stolen van. Mountjoy said though there are many holes in Pasiecznick’s testimony, the court can be satisfied that she’s telling the truth about Lehl being the driver that morning, because she claims to be the passenger and there is an abundance of confirmatory circumstantial evidence to support this assertion. “They have not proven that,” Abbasi said of the Crown’s suggestion that her client stole the trailer and drove the van. She said at the U-Haul lot it is unclear if the person attached the trailer properly and we “cannot speculate as to what is happening.” Lehl’s defence lawyer, Ayesha Abbasi, spent much of her closing submissions, inside the Brampton courthouse, discrediting what she said was the inconsistent evidence of Lehl’s then girlfriend and former co-accused, Joyce Pasiecznick, a drug addict and untrustworthy witness who admitted to lying to police and the courts.Ībbasi said the Crown is working with a lack of credible witness testimony and unclear video footage, adding that Pasiecznick was “just making it up as she goes.” Mountjoy said De Pledge “paid the price” for Lehl’s reckless behaviour and the accused didn’t go back for the trailer because he “wanted to make good his escape.” He died at the scene after being found pinned next to the wall of a warehouse near the roadway. 1, 2018, when he was mowed down and dragged across a grassy area by the trailer when it became unhitched and crossed into oncoming traffic shortly after 6 a.m. She said Lehl’s haste to hook up the trailer caused it to become unhitched shortly after.ĭe Pledge, 39, who was covering a shift for a coworker at a Brampton business, was having a routine bicycle ride to work, on Summerlea Road in Brampton, on the morning of Aug. “This is deliberate conduct that occurred over the course of approximately one kilometre,” Mountjoy said of the brief drive the white cargo van made from U-Haul to where it struck and killed Paul De Pledge. Mountjoy said it was stolen by Lehl minutes earlier from a nearby U-Haul lot, in what Mountjoy called a largely circumstantial case but for the evidence of Lehl’s then girlfriend, which the Crown relied on along with video evidence in its attempt to implicate Lehl. ![]() ![]() Harris on Monday that Pritpal Lehl was the man driving the stolen van that was captured on video hauling a trailer. #A thief in the night trailer trialA Brampton forklift driver was killed by a runaway trailer that a thief improperly hitched to stolen van in August 2018 and sped away from the scene when the untethered trailer veered into oncoming traffic, the Crown said during closing submissions in the criminal negligence causing death trial of a Brampton man.Īssistant Crown attorney Amy Mountjoy told Justice David E. ![]()
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