The B.C. Court of Appeal has overturned an aggravated assault conviction and ordered a new trial in the case of a man found guilty of a violent beating tied to a marijuana grow-op on the North Shore.
Paul Defaveri, 52, was found guilty in September 2012 of violently beating 68-year-old Ron Perry in a rented home in North Vancouver, leaving Perry with permanent injuries.
“He was savagely beaten, bound, blindfolded and robbed. His eyes were gouged. His blood was spread on the walls of the living room and the adjacent hallway,” wrote Justice Peter Lowry of the B.C. Court of Appeal in summarizing the case.
Lowry wrote that both sides agreed Perry went to the house on Philip Avenue to meet with Defaveri and his girlfriend. Perry believed the couple was running a grow-op out of the basement on behalf of a crime boss and was hoping Defaveri and his girlfriend could provide an introduction.
During the trial, Perry described in horrific detail how he was hit on the head from behind with a hammer and had his eyes gouged with someone’s fingers.
Perry never saw who attacked him.
Following the attack, he was bound with zap straps before being stuffed in a vehicle and driven to Vancouver, where he was found by a passerby. As a result of the attack, Perry lost one eye and has limited vision in the other.
Defaveri and a second man, Robin Pryce, who were both living in the home at the time, were both charged in the case, which rested on largely circumstantial evidence.
Following a trial in North Vancouver provincial court, Judge Steven Merrick found Pryce not guilty, saying there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt he was involved in the attack.
In convicting Defaveri, Merrick pointed to the fact Defaveri was home when the assault started and to his fingerprint, which was found in Perry’s blood on a door inside the house.
In weighing Perry’s testimony, the original trial judge considered that Perry “has an extensive criminal record and admitted to having lied under oath,” wrote the appeal court justice. In delivering his verdict, the judge said he accepted some of Perry’s testimony and not other parts, but didn’t go into detail.
Defaveri’s defence lawyer Paul McMurray argued the trial judge had not properly considered the circumstantial evidence in the case.
In ordering a new trial, the appeal court justices agreed the verdict was unclear concerning which parts of Perry’s testimony the judge accepted and which he rejected.
A date for a new trial has not yet been set.
Defaveri has been released on bail pending the new trial.
