Accused of trying to murder his girlfriend, Jason King still opts to represent himself

“I guess it’s my ego,” Jason King, 47, told Justice Donald Burrage, who implored him to get a lawyer.

King is charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault in connection with the stabbing of his ex-girlfriend outside the Dollarama where he worked on March 29, 2016. She was taken to hospital and treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

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King is also facing a charge of assaulting the same woman the previous day. King was under a court order to have no contact with the woman at the time, and is charged with violating it as a result. He had been convicted in June 2015 of assaulting the same woman and damaging her property, earning himself three months of house arrest and three years of probation.

In Supreme Court Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Erin Matthews asked Burrage for more time to go over the evidence in the case and to advise King on what she would be seeking in terms of sentencing.

King has previously acknowledged he wants to plead guilty to at least some of the charges.

“I would like to expedite this for a speedy resolution,” he said Tuesday. “My concern in all of this is I’ve been incarcerated for 17 months and the court has never heard my side. I feel the court has suppressed my side.”

“Your side is relevant. As you sit in the dock, you are presumed to be an innocent man,” Burrage replied. “There are two ways your side can come out. Your version can come out at trial, or through an agreement with the Crown on what happened.”

Burrage reminded King that if an agreement with the Crown is made, the court doesn’t have to accept it.

King attempted to give the judge some of the details of his case, but Burrage stopped him, telling him, “If you had a lawyer here today, they would not allow you to speak and give evidence.”

King will be back in court Sept. 11. Burrage told him if he wasn’t satisfied with the statement of facts and sentence proposed by the Crown at that point, the case would go to a five-day trial Jan. 29, 2018.

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Twitter: @tara_bradbury