A police witness’s training schedule has forced rescheduling of trial dates for a man charged with a rash of violent crimes in Red Deer and surrounding communities during the spring of 2013.
Garnet Colby Mcinnes, 23, was arrested in Lacombe on May 28 by police investigating a number of incidents, including robberies, dangerous driving, assault, housebreaking, kidnapping, unlawful confinement, extortion and a variety of weapons offences.
RCMP allege that Mcinnes was involved in a series of events, including a kidnapping and standoff in Red Deer on May 14, a carjacking and assault near Blackfalds on May 15, resisting arrest and assaulting police officers in Red Deer on May 24, and a home invasion in Red Deer on May 26.
He was scheduled for a series of four trials in Red Deer provincial court, starting on April 16.
However, the April 16 trial and a second trial set for May 7 have been rescheduled to April 1 and Sept. 18 respectively, at the request of Crown prosecutor Murray McPherson.
In court on Wednesday, McPherson said a key witness in the Crown’s case will be unavailable because he has been accepted into a seven-week emergency response training course in Ottawa.
Mcinnes’s remaining trials remain as scheduled on June 13 and July 2 and 3.
Red Deer lawyer Daniel Wilson, acting as agent for defence counsel Allan Fay of Calgary, raised no objections to the changes.