A charge of assault causing bodily harm has been stayed against a suspect accused of shoving a 93-year-old man in Vancouver’s Chinatown in a stranger attack captured on security video in the fall of 2022.
A bench warrant was issued for Henry Paul Wiens on April 22, 2024, when he failed to attend court on the first day of his trial.
Some information was then provided to the Crown, according to the BC Prosecution Service (BCPS), and as a result, the remaining trial dates were cancelled.
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“The Crown was able to make some independent enquiries about that information and directed the stay of proceedings at the court registry on April 23, 2024,” BCPS communications counsel Damienne Darby said in an email.
Darby said the decision to stay the charge was made after further information was received by the prosecutor with conduct of the file.
“After reviewing this information and the rest of the file materials, the prosecutor concluded the charge approval standard was no longer met,” wrote Darby.
In Feb. 2023, Vancouver police issued a province-wide arrest warrant for Wiens, after he was charged in the Oct. 11, 2022 assault near Main and Pender streets.
At the time, police said the 93-year-old victim, a long-time neighbourhood resident, was walking to a bakery when he was pushed to the ground by a stranger and suffered a broken hip.
Several witnesses stopped to help the senior who required hospitalization, and police later released security video of the incident.
Wiens was arrested 10 days after the province-wide warrant was issued.
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