Sheep nabbing case: Defendants can keep their lawyer, judge rules

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

by JOE CALLAHAN

Two people facing charges in connection with the disappearance in 2012 of sheep from a quarantined Northumberland County farm have been given the green light by an Ontario judge to share their lawyer. But they must wait another month before they can put their newly affirmed legal counsel to the test.

On Tuesday in an Ontario Court of Justice in Cobourg, Judge Lorne Chester dismissed an application to have defense lawyer Shawn Buckley removed as co-counsel for Michael Schmidt and Linda (Montana) Jones.

Crown attorney Damien Frost had filed the motion to remove Buckley.

Frost had argued that there is the potential for a “cutthroat defense,” whereby one of Buckley’s clients could turn against the other in providing evidence for the Crown.
 
However, in his roughly 40-minute oral ruling on Tuesday, Chester stated that Frost had not provided evidence that there is a “realistic risk” of a conflict of interest in Buckley’s role as co-counsel.
 
Jones, from Hastings in Northumberland County and Schmidt, from Durham, along with Robert Pinnell of West Grey township, in Grey County, and Suzanne Atkinson, Warkworth, Northumberland County, face charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction of a Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) officer, to transport or to cause to transport an animal under quarantine, and conspiracy to defraud the public of a service over $5,000 under the Criminal Code.

Jones is also charged with obstructing a CFIA inspector under the Health of Animals Act and Pinnell faces a further charge of attempting to obstruct justice and another for obstructing a police officer, both under the Criminal Code.

Prior to the livestock’s disappearance, Jones, a Shropshire sheep breeder, was embroiled in a dispute with the CFIA over its decision to destroy her flock following a positive test for scrapie, a federally reportable disease that is fatal to sheep and goats. The missing sheep were recovered later on a farm in western Ontario.

Court proceedings will resume at a pre-trial hearing scheduled at the Ontario Court of Justice in Cobourg, August 18. BF