When prosecution met defence: The Michael Bryant case.

• Author: Smith, J. Mark

Facts of the Case

At 9:47 p.m. on Aug. 31, 2009, former Ontario attorney general and CEO of Invest Toronto Michael Bryant, driving home after dinner with his wife, had a violent encounter with a younger man on a bicycle, Darcy "Allan" Sheppard. Sheppard was drunk, and at a traffic light on Bloor St. W. pulled his bicycle to a stop in front of Bryant's Saab convertible. The ex-politician, for reasons that have never been satisfactorily established, drove into the cyclist. The force knocked Sheppard back onto the hood and dragged his bicycle some distance beneath the Saab. Sheppard rolled off, stood up, ran around the car and jumped onto the driver's side, holding onto the window frame (or possibly the driver's seat headrest). Bryant reversed, drove around the downed bicycle, and accelerated down Bloor into the oncoming lane, which was free of traffic. After a few seconds, Sheppard was thrown from the car. The left side of his torso was torn open, probably by a fire hydrant; but he died, according to the coroner, from the blunt impact trauma of his head hitting the road or sidewalk. Bryant drove to the Hyatt hotel a few blocks along Bloor, where he spoke with a doorman and (three minutes after arriving) phoned 911. The Toronto police charged Bryant with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death. He spent the night in jail.

Bryant appeared the next day for a press conference in a crisp suit, hired the public relations firm Navigator, and retained top criminal lawyer Marie Henein as his defence attorney.

It emerged that Sheppard, who was Metis, had been a ward of the child welfare system in Alberta. He worked as a bicycle courier in Toronto. He had a lengthy criminal record in both Alberta and Ontario, mostly for petty and substance abuse-related offences.

The Ontario attorney general's office, in order to avoid the appearance of bias, appointed a prominent B.C. defence lawyer, Richard Peck, to serve as Special Prosecutor in the case.

The Dropping of Charges and the Special Prosecutor's Public Statement

On May 25, 2010, the Special Prosecutor, concluding there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction, dropped the charges against Bryant. (A scanned copy of the proceedings can be found at The Darcy Sheppard Files a site maintained by the victim's father.)

The procedure was unusual in that the announcement of the dropping of charges against Bryant was accompanied by a lengthy public account of the Crown's reasons...