Robert (Bobby) Newell stood at the bar in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court alongside the Crown prosecutor Thursday afternoon, arranging his speaking notes on the podium and taking a sip of water as he prepared to make closing submissions for the defence in the case of a commercial break-in in St. John’s.
He seemed to know his stuff, speaking eloquently as he quoted case law and summed up the evidence presented by witnesses at trial, explaining to Justice Alphonsus Faour why he believes it should be discounted.
Underneath the table, Newell wore socks and flip-flops, his ankles bound by shackles. The accused in the case was himself.
Newell, 34, is charged with breaking into Trico Ltd., a siding contractor, on Austin Street in St. John’s in July 2016.
Related story:
Juice carton key evidence in St. John’s church break-in case
Police responded to the business after its security alarm was activated around 1:40 on a Saturday morning, arriving to find two glass doors smashed and the office ransacked. Officers examined the scene and took photos, finding two footprints but no fingerprints or other evidence.
The following Monday, a staff member entered the office to prepare to open the business, and noticed drops of blood near her desk. On a wooden paper tray behind her desk was a smear of blood.
Police were called back to the scene and took samples of the blood, which was later found to be a DNA match to Newell.
Newell asked the judge to “keep an ever-open mind and not draw conclusions” in the case, pointing out aspects of the evidence he felt raised reasonable doubt when it comes to his guilt. The DNA match wasn’t 100 per cent, he noted, but was deemed by forensic experts to have a probability of one in more than a quintillion — that’s 18 zeros.
Newell also accused prosecutor Jude Hall of leading witnesses during questioning, resulting in them incorporating new details in their evidence.
As well, he was critical of the RNC officers’ handling of the case, saying the officers who testified had kept insufficient notes and didn’t appear to obtain pertinent details from Trico staff.
“I don’t know what to make of the testimony of those two officers,” Newell told the judge. “The only inference is that the witnesses sought to collude to support the case of the Crown.”
Newell noted the forensic officer who attended the scene on the night of the break-in had testified she did not see any blood.
“She said, ‘It’s possible I didn’t see them or they weren’t there,’” Newell recounted.
In closing submissions, Hall acknowledged the evidence in the case is circumstantial, but pointed logically to a break-in, since the doors were smashed and the office was ransacked. If any of his questions were leading, Hall pointed out, neither Newell nor the judge objected to them during questioning.
The forensic officer had testified there was no natural light when she took the photos of the crime scene, Hall said, and she had also told the court she routinely encourages victims of break-ins to have a look around over the course of a few days and report back to police if they find anything amiss.
“That’s exactly what happened here, Your Honour,” Hall said. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”
There is no reason to suggest the witnesses had colluded, Hall said, adding that Newell had offered no explanation as to how the blood got in the office.
Regarding the DNA match, Hall scoffed at the idea that a probability rate of one in 1.15 quintillion would not be considered accurate, saying courts across the country routinely accept these results as accurate.
“There’s no other rational conclusion this court could come to other than Mr. Newell broke into Trico Ltd. and he left his DNA behind as he rifled through the (employee’s) desk, and this was discovered when she returned to work that Monday,” Hall said.
It was the second time Newell appeared before a judge this week. On Tuesday, he was in the courtroom as Justice Vikas Khaladkar found him guilty of another break-in, at St. Pius X Church. In that instance, which happened in September 2016, Newell left behind a juice carton that was later found to contain his DNA on the spout. He has yet to be sentenced for that crime.
Newell was arrested in the fall of 2016 and charged with more than 100 offences, including assaults, thefts and dozens of court breaches. He made a plea bargain for many of the charges, and others were withdrawn as a result.
He will be back in court on Thursday to hear Faour’s verdict in the Trico break-in case.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
