The trial of two men accused of killing a Metchosin man after they escaped from a Victoria prison will remain a joint one after lawyers abandoned an application to split the case.
Zachary Armitage and James Lee Busch escaped from minimum-security William Head in Metchosin on the night of July 7, 2019.
The pair appeared before Justice David Crossin in Vancouver Oct. 11 where it was expected that Busch’s lawyer, Schuyler Roy, would make a severance application to split the cases.
Roy, however, told Crossin that the application was being abandoned. Armitage’s lawyer, Jim Heller, took no position on the change, nor did Crown prosecutor Chandra Fisher.
They were discovered missing during an 11 p.m. head count. The two were recaptured in Esquimalt on July 9 by an off-duty RCMP officer.
The same week the men escaped, Martin Payne, 60, was found dead in his home on July 12, three days after his vehicle was found in Oak Bay.
After a preliminary hearing to determine if sufficient evidence existed to go to the trial, the pair was committed to trial in B.C. Supreme Court.
Busch and Armitage have already pleaded guilty to the prison break and received 12-month sentences.
Armitage was placed at William Head in 2018 and was due for parole in September 2019.
The fact the men were in the minimum-security prison bewildered many, including the judge who sentenced them for the escape. Armitage had five previous escapes.
Since the escape, federal and municipal politicians have also questioned why the violent offenders with escape histories were at the prison.
A February 2018 Correctional Service of Canada internal report assessed Armitage as a moderate risk to escape and best suited for a medium-security institution, “but one week later,” that recommendation was “overridden” and he was assessed as a low risk to escape and determined to be suitable for minimum security, Judge Roger Cutler said.
Armitage was placed at William Head in April 2018.
Cutler said “the public is entitled to expect that those incarcerated for violent criminal conduct and who have an extensive and recent escape history are rarely, and only with solid reasoning, placed in a position where escaping incarceration may be achieved merely by walking the shoreline at low tide.”
