A Vancouver Provincial Court judge has rejected defending property as a defence and has found a 62-year-old man guilty of manslaughter.
The March trial of Jeffrey Scott Van Dyke heard he was the subject of repeated harassment from Scott Alan Carver and was protecting his electric scooter when Carver sustained fatal head injuries on June 2, 2022. He died later in hospital.
The pair both lived in low-barrier housing at First Avenue and Main Street in Vancouver.
Defence lawyer Glen Orris told Judge Jennier Oulton at trial that Van Dyke had been the recipient of multiple communications from Carver designed to harass, anger and insult.
“Why he was doing this we don’t know,” Orris said. “This harassment had been going on for quite some time.”
Staff had warned Carver about his behaviour.
Housing manager Michael Lawson testified the relationship between Carver and Van Dyke was not good, and that he witnessed several arguments between the men.
Lawson said he had written a letter to Carver regarding notes that had been left in the elevator and on Van Dyke’s door making sexual orientation slurs. At one point, Carver had referred to Van Dyke’s scooter as a “super dooper sissy scooter.”
Carver was gravely injured in a series of shoving incidents after Van Dyke arrived at the building on his electric scooter, the court heard. Much of the incident was caught on CCTV.
He arrived to find Carver writing sexual slurs on the sidewalk in chalk. The video showed he appeared to be drinking from a bottle of alcohol.
Van Dyke pushed Carver, who toppled backward. Carver then took a swipe at Van Dyke with his cane.
Both men wound up on the ground after which Van Dyke hit Carver with the cane. The former retreated.
Soon, Carver approached the scooter and kicked it twice after which Van Dyke shoved him again. That time, Carver did not get back up.
The judge ruled the amount of force used was not reasonable in the circumstance and found Van Dyke guilty of manslaughter.
As he heard the decision on April 24, Van Dyke shook his head, quietly muttering, “No, no.”
Oulton heard the cause of death was a blunt force head injury that caused a scalp laceration, a skull fracture and a buildup of blood on the brain.
Carver underwent brain surgery and was stable for several days before dying, Crown prosecutor Jenny Dyck said at the trial’s start.
The defence of property can be used as a defence in such an instance if the person reasonably believes their property is going to be damaged or destroyed. However, Oulton said, Carver was using a cane, intoxicated, already bleeding from his head and was unsteady.
The death was the city's seventh homicide of the year.
