Victim who lost unborn child after shooting testifies at trial of ex
Credit to Author: Keith Fraser| Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 00:44:30 +0000
A woman who lost her unborn child after being shot in a loft at a print shop in East Vancouver testified at the trial of her former boyfriend on Monday.
The woman, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, said Carleton Stevens, who has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, had threatened her prior to the May 2018 shooting incident.
She told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Duncan that she had met Stevens, who was 37 at the time of the shooting, at the home of a friend in Abbotsford and had begun a romantic relationship with him.
The Crown witness said that things were initially “good” between them but that her feelings about herself were “not so good” and she felt low self-esteem.
Under questioning from Crown counsel Hank Reiner, she said that the relationship soured while Stevens was in custody and came to believe that she had been unfaithful to him.
She said Stevens was “angry” and “abusive” and at one point had threatened to shoot her.
After he learned from her that she was pregnant, Stevens was unhappy, believing that they were not in a good position and wanted her to get an abortion, she said.
Asked by Reiner as to who the father of the baby was, she said: “It was him. To the best of my knowledge it was him. He kind of felt that it was someone else’s.”
After leaving the home in Abbotsford, she moved into the home in Surrey of a man named Taj Lovett, who worked at the print shop on Industrial Avenue, she said.
She said she went to the print shop several times and prior to the shooting had been living in the loft for several weeks with Lovett after she’d broken up with Stevens following the threats.
“How were you feeling emotionally that night (of the shooting),” said Reiner.
“I was pretty upset,” said the witness.
“And why were you upset,” said Reiner.
“Everything,” she said. “I knew that (Stevens) might show up.”
After she went asleep, she said she was awoken by a “presence” in the room.
She heard a clicking and banging noise and said she saw Stevens standing in the room, which was dark.
“He was like surprised and he was like shaking, like he’d been caught off guard,” she said.
The witness, who was 6 1/2 months pregnant, said she saw Stevens putting together a gun and she woke up Lovett, who was sleeping with her.
Stevens then said something but she said she couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
“I was thinking that it was, ‘You f–king bitch,’ but I’m not sure,” she said. “But I know I heard his voice.”
She said she then turned to run and was shot.
“I got shot when I was rising up” out of the bed, she said.
Asked by Reiner whether she saw anyone else other than Stevens and Lovett in the room, she said she hadn’t seen any other persons.
The witness, who said she was shot in the stomach, later lost the unborn child after being rushed to the hospital.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Chandra Corriveau, the witness was taken through her criminal record which included a number of crimes of dishonesty.
Corriveau suggested that a third, unidentified person other than her client and Lovett was also in the loft at the time of the shooting and had grabbed a gun from the loft’s railing. The witness initially said it didn’t feel like anyone else was there, then added she guessed it was possible.
The trial is expected to continue Tuesday with a number of police witnesses.
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