SYDNEY, N.S. — A teen who saw his friend killed after he was hit by a school bus outside a high school in Sydney, N.S., last winter told police in a videotaped statement that he didn’t think the accused meant to do it.
The videotape testimony came on the second day of the trial of a 15-year-old boy charged with criminal negligence causing death.
In previous testimony, the witness said he didn’t remember telling police after the incident that the 18-year-old victim, Chris Chafe, had asked what would happen if he was pushed in front of the bus.
He also said he couldn’t remember being interviewed by police.
Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the boy cannot be identified.
In the video, the boy says a group of teens were playing and pushing each other outside Sydney Academy on Feb. 11 when the incident happened.
“The boys were just hanging around pushing each other in the snowbanks just for fun,” he tells the officer. “Chris Chafe, he jokingly said what would happen if you push me in front of the bus?”
He says on the video that Chafe made the statement about being pushed before he was shoved by the defendant, but adds the boy didn’t mean to push Chafe over a snowbank and into the bus.
The witness told police he didn’t think the defendant, who also cannot be identified, saw the bus coming because he was blocking the other teen’s view.
“I don’t think he saw the bus, honestly,” he told the officer.
When asked questions about his videotaped interview by defence lawyer James Snow, the boy repeatedly replied that he didn’t remember or said “I don’t know.”
Provincial court Judge Peter Ross ruled that the video would not be entered as evidence because it conflicted with what the boy said in the witness box. The defence indicated that it would make a motion later to have the video entered as evidence.
On Tuesday, the boy told the court he saw the defendant use both hands to push Chafe in the upper chest before he fell over a small snowbank and into the street. When asked to describe the force of the push, he called it a “a good push, a decent push.”
Medical examiner Dr. Marnie Wood told the court on Wednesday that Chafe died of blunt force trauma to the head.