Allan Sheppard Sr says son denied a fair hearing but Crown says decision was made independently

Update: I've added info from the Crown's email on the independence and public record of the decision in the case. There has been little media coverage with both sides of the story so far.

We'll never know exactly what happened on the night four years ago that former Attorney General Michael Bryant and bike courier Darcy Allan Sheppard got into an on-street argument that resulted in Sheppard's tragic death. But Allan Sheppard Senior today made an impassioned and levelheaded statement that his son never received justice through a "robust prosecution". Sheppard Sr. and supporters have assembled documents that they acquired through freedom of information requests that they say raises questions about the decisions made by the prosecutor of the case. They claim that justice was not done when Special Prosecutor Richard Peck decided that there wasn't enough evidence for a trial, and that they have evidence "the Crown tweaked, massaged, and cherry-picked evidence and testimony, effectively to exonerate Mr. Bryant." (Photo: TVO)

The Crown has responded that an independent outside prosecutor handled the case and the reasons for his decision are public record. In an email from the Crown to Newstalk 1010 saying "on May 25, 2010, the independent outside prosecutor concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction and withdrew the charges against the accused. The independent prosecutor put his reasons for this conclusion on the record in open court. As this was matter was handled by an independent outside prosecutor, the Ministry has no further comment to make on this matter." Peck was brought in from British Columbia as a prosecutor for the matter given that Michael Bryant was Attorney General of Ontario at the time.

From Sheppard Sr's statement today, Sheppard said that just like everyone deserves a robust defence, so every victim deserves a robust prosecution.

That does not mean the victim’s side of the story must prevail; only that it must be considered, presented, and argued as robustly as any defence.

In our common-law system, that argument must take place in an open, adversarial court that is designed and intended to find truth between robustly contested theories of a case.

That didn’t happen for my son.

Sheppard Sr said he didn't know what justice would look like in this case, nor does he think it was necessarily unjust to drop the charges. Instead, Sheppard Senr says that there was injustice in how the prosecutor explained the decision "in a way that exonerates Mr. Bryant of all responsibility and accountability and, in effect, justifies what he did to my son—without the transparency necessary to support such a conclusion." The Crown, it seems, considers the case closed and that a responsible decision was made. There wasn't any public comment from Special Prosecutor Peck that I could find as of this posting.