A local martial arts instructor is facing charges of assault causing bodily harm for cold-cocking a First Nations man outside the Coldwater Hotel last May.
Defendant Anthony Kim Carlton was in court in Merritt representing himself in a trial that spanned two days at the end of March and will wrap up come June.
Court heard from Crown prosecutor Neil Flanagan that sometime during the early morning hours of May 8, 2016, Carlton exited out of the front entrance of the bar and knocked Shane Hurst to the ground with a single blow.
“This is observed by at least three witnesses,” said Flanagan, adding that Carlton was well known to at least two of those witnesses. “I don’t expect identification’s going to be an issue,” he told judge Stella Frame.
During the trial, Carlton argued that he was engaging in a consensual fight with Hurst.
Two female witnesses testified that they were talking to each other outside the bar to the right of the entrance on the night in question when they saw Carlton exit the front door, yelling “who hit my girlfriend?”
They said that within seconds Carlton punched a man in the face.
“It was the loudest crack I’ve ever heard in my life,” said witness Taylor Cox.
“There wasn’t really time for any defence,” she said, adding that the man dropped to the ground right away like a limp noodle.
“You could hear his head crack off the ground,” she said.
On the second day of trial, court heard from Hurst’s former girlfriend of two years, Eugenia Edwards, who said she noticed a significant change in his behaviour after being punched by Carlton.
“The man I fell in love with was a happy man. The man that Shane is now is an angry man. His moods change so fast,” she said.
Edwards and Hurst had been in town that Saturday for a softball game, and went to the Coldwater Hotel later that night to drop off and pick up her brother and a few other people. She said a scuffle ensued between her brother and another person they knew while in the bar to pick him up, and they eventually made their way outside to leave.
In security camera footage presented in court, Edwards can be seen standing next to Hurst who is facing the door when Carlton exits the bar towards them.
She told the court that Carlton came out of the bar yelling that Hurst hit his girlfriend, pushed her aside and punched Hurst in the jaw.
“And then I started screaming because he was knocked out,” said Edwards.
She said Hurst’s dentures were broken in half as a result of the punch and produced a red mark on his chin.
She also said she drove Hurst back home to Kamloops in the middle of the night and took him to the hospital later that morning.
“He has changed, since he has gotten hit by you,” Edwards told Carlton in court during cross examination.
Edwards said Hurst has had mood swings ever since he was struck, which lead to the couple breaking up.
Carlton suggested Hurst was an alcoholic and that could be the reason for his mood swings. Carlton later called the bouncer who was on shift that evening as a witness, who claimed he saw Hurst holding a beer inside the bar, but did not see him drink it.
“Right now my submission to you will be that Mr. Carlton is guilty on his own evidence,” Neil Flanagan, Crown prosecutor.
The Crown called an RCMP officer who attended the scene that night who said he didn’t detect alcohol on Hurst’s breath, but did notice he appeared groggy and was moving slow. He said he asked Hurst if he needed medical attention, which he declined, and left with Edwards.
Carlton himself took the stand to give his version of what happened that night.
He said he had been dating one of the waitresses at the time and was shooting pool at the Coldwater Hotel that night.
He said that at times he has helped the bouncer handle scuffles that break out and noticed that night his girlfriend was caught in the middle of one while trying to serve drinks, so he escorted her to the bar.
Carlton said he went back to break up the altercation and didn’t see the bouncer. He said a man he later found out was Shane Hurst pushed him and told him to mind his business.
“I walked back to the pool table [and] continued to play pool, and the scuffle continued,” Carlton told the court.
He said he went back to break up the altercation again which now involved more people than the first, and that is when Carlton claimed Hurst grabbed him and told him to step outside.
“I told him do your homework first before you step that way,” Carlton said, adding that he went back to his pool table again.
“You insert yourself between something that’s happening between Shane and another person?” asked Flanagan, which yielded a yes from Carlton. “Do you know what Shane is trying to accomplish?” Flanagan asked, to which Carlton said he saw Shane fighting someone.
When a third scuffle ensued, Carlton said he walked over towards them again and saw that Hurst had been escorted out of the bar.
Carlton said he then wound up involved in a scuffle with one of the people associated with Hurst, and then some other person told him to take it outside.
He said he saw Hurst through the window by the pool table “being aggressive” and he went outside because “it was clear to me he wasn’t leaving, he was waiting.”
“I went outside, did not say a word, he was walking away from me at the time when I stepped outside. He turned around as I got to him and I open hand slapped him. I did not make a fist,” Carlton told the court, noting that it was an extremely loud strike.
Carlton said that as a martial artist he is aware of pressure points, and slapping someone on the chin will cause them to lose their equilibrium.
“It doesn’t do damage, It doesn’t do brain damage — doesn’t hurt them at all,” he said.
Flanagan asked Carlton what made Hurst appear to be acting aggressively when he saw him through the window. Carlton said Hurst appeared to be yelling, but admitted he could not hear him from inside.
“He was motioning like he was upset. He was motioning like he was waiting for somebody to come out,” said Carlton.
“Why are you going out at that point?,” Flanagan asked.
“I see Shane out there wanting to do something, so I assumed it was Shane that wanted me outside,” said Carlton.
“And within a second you’ve laid Shane out on the pavement. You’re out that door, you take two steps or three — and I am suggesting you punched him — you nailed him, full force in the head within a second or so of this third person saying, ‘Let’s take it outside,’” said Flanagan.
“He was standing there defenceless,” said Flanagan, adding that Hurst’s hands were at his sides.
“You could have just stayed inside,” Flanagan said. “The reason I suggest you didn’t stay inside is that you had thought someone had pushed your girlfriend and you were going to go out and make someone pay,” said Flanagan.
Carlton asked to adjourn the proceedings after two days of trial to allow him to call another witness to the stand.
“Right now my submission to you will be that Mr. Carlton is guilty on his own evidence,” Flanagan told judge Frame who granted the adjournment.
The trial is scheduled to continue on June 8.
