A man on trial for attempted murder will be given a chance to lead RCMP to where he says he buried two shotguns following a shooting in the city's north end two-and-a-half years ago.
The search will begin midday today when Bradley Douglas Barr, 35, is put into police custody under an application granted by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ron Tindale, who is hearing the trial before judge alone.
The court is expected to hear recordings in which Barr was to have told a police agent and then an RCMP officer he buried the weapons after Craig Frederick Lyver, 42, was shot Sept. 20, 2012 during an apparent standoff on a 2800-block Northwood Pulp Mill Road property.
Uncovering the guns, combined with his statements to the two, will help Barr advance an argument that he had acted in self defence, defence lawyer Keith Aartsen told Tindale before the grant was given Wednesday at the Prince George courthouse.
Depending on how things go, Barr will be back in court on Friday and testimony will resume. Testimony will also be heard this morning prior to Barr being handed over to police.
Barr also faces charges of discharging a firearm with an attempt to wound or disfigure and unlawful discharge of a firearm.
Earlier Wednesday, the court was taken through text messages and phone records that indicate Lyver was at odds with Barr and Jason Hall, a well-known figure in the city's organized crime scene, over the operation of a small marijuana grow operation at the Northwood Pulp Mill Road property.
A lengthy series of text messages, filled with expletives, threats and warnings, were read out in the court. They dated back to about two weeks before the incident when Lyver accused Barr of ignoring his phone calls and not doing his share of the work.Â
Hall, meanwhile, appeared to side with Barr on the matter with the two using colourful language to essentially call Lyver an upstart who was overstepping his boundaries.
The tension died off after Barr moved out of Lyver's Hart-area home, in the 2200 block of Bedard Road and a few kilometres away from the Northwood Pulp Mill Road, but resumed again a day or so before the shooting.
In earlier testimony, the court heard Hall and two others had gone over to Lyver's home the night before the shooting where they consumed some methamphetamine. After Hall left, Lyver noticed some items missing from his home and suspected Hall had stolen them.
That sparked another series of confrontational text messages between the two, as well as to Barr and his girlfriend, culminating with Hall telling Lyver to meet him at the Renegades clubhouse on Fir Street and, conversely, Lyver telling Hall to meet him at the property where he was eventually shot on the afternoon of Sept. 20, 2012.
RCMP were called to the scene at about 3:20 p.m. and found a screaming and groaning Lyver lying in the middle of the driveway suffering from shotgun wounds to a leg, elbow and hip. Two knives were also found at the scene, prompting RCMP to suggest Lyver knew who pulled the trigger.
But Lyver did not give a name before he was taken to hospital for surgery.
Hall, a former president of the Renegades biker gang, had been scheduled to testify at the trial but was gunned down March 22 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Gillett Street. As a result of Hall's death, Crown had planned to enter his testimony at a preliminary inquiry as an exhibit but there were technical difficulties with the recording and Aartsen subsequently told the court it was not needed.
"Not much hangs on it," Aartsen said.
-Â Testifying Wednesday, Jerry Vukasovic said he was not consuming methampetamine when at the home of Craig Lyver, the man who was shot Sept. 20, 2012 on a 2800-block Nechako Road property.
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