Was it a case of self-defence or did Jaspal Singh Sidhu intend to kill his father in a deliberate assault at a Guelph home on Feb. 28, 2023?
Closing submissions were read in Guelph's Superior Court of Justice Tuesday afternoon, following two weeks of testimony from over 20 different people in the second-degree murder trial.
Both sides paint a different picture of what happened that led to Balbir Singh Sidhu’s death.
Defence attorney David Doney says Jaspal was defending himself in a scuffle between the two.
Crown attorney Peter Keen argues Jaspal’s version of events have “so many flaws" in it and is not believable.
Doney presented his arguments to the jury first, and emphasized it is up to the Crown to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
He said a difficulty in the case is that nobody saw the incident, and the tenants downstairs wouldn’t understand any dialogue overheard upstairs, as it was in a different language.
“We don’t have the advantage of knowing the actual exchange, and I suppose we never will in this case,” he said. “And we don’t have anybody that saw the events.”
Doney referred to evidence presented by Renata Dziak, the forensic biologist at the Centre for Forensic Sciences.
He recalled the part where she said only one person's DNA was found on the blue knife, which had Balbir's hand on it when police arrived at the scene.
He called it “important” for the jury to know Jaspal’s DNA was not found on the knife handle. Keen later pointed out Dziak said it is possible for someone to handle an item and not leave detectable DNA.
He called Jaspal’s testimony “quite consistent” and his answers provided to the Crown were “reasonable under the circumstances” when alternatives were put to him.
“He addressed the questions, he answered the questions with what would appear honestly,” Doney said.
“I would suggest to you that he did so in a forthright way.”
Doney said a “significant number” of people testified over the last two weeks, but the best evidence came from the police body camera footage, as it tells where things were when first responders arrived.
“What it doesn’t tell us is what happened,” he added.
What happened seems clear in the mind of Keen and the Crown.
He told the jury in his closing address there are 16 reasons not to believe Jaspal’s version of events, and eight reasons the Crown has proven its case of second-degree murder.
Keen said Jaspal presented Balbir as someone “so strong he can hold a transmission with his one hand, somebody who was so strong that after having received seven stab wounds in the kitchen, was able to continue a very robust fight.”
He pointed out one of those wounds was to Balbir’s aorta, which medical evidence presented in the trial showed would make an ordinary person “dizzy," adding Balbir would have "lost consciousness and died fairly quickly.”
Keen pointed out Jaspal’s version of events would mean despite that injury, Balbir ignored that and kept fighting.
He said others have pointed out in the trial that Balbir had arthritis in his spine, a bulging disc, a chronic right shoulder problem, a permanent rotator cuff injury and numbness in his legs.
Images of Balbir’s stab wounds were shown again, and it was noted one of the eight showed “signs of movement,” meaning the other seven were "clean in, clean out."
If it was a back-and-forth struggle, he argues there should be more evidence of movement, including scratches and bruises.
Keen said Balbir didn't have any head or elbow injuries, dismissing a trip and backwards fall in the dining room.
“Balbir Sidhu was stabbed eight times,” Keen said. “One stab wound might be misfortunate, that might be an accident, see that occurring during a fight. But eight? It defies belief to suggest that a protracted physical dispute taking place over two rooms and a corridor (in between), all eight of those stab wounds were inflicted accidentally.”
Keen also noted images from the scene showed items on the island such as dishes, and despite a struggle, the items were untouched.
He referenced how Jaspal wasn’t hurt and no blood was detected on his shirt. He added there were no offensive or defensive injuries to Balbir.
As it pertains to the charge of second-degree murder, Keen said "if you stab someone eight times, you intend to kill them, if you stab someone in the heart, you intend to kill them."
He doubts the jury will need to spend much time deliberating between murder and manslaughter.
Keen contends with many previous criminal convictions against Jaspal related to charges of dishonesty, the jury should be “extremely cautious” in believing what he had to say.
“His very description of the entire sequence of events is not believable,” Keen said. “ It doesn’t fit with the medical evidence, it doesn’t fit with the physical evidence, it doesn’t hang together internally, it doesn’t fit with the evidence of the timing with the police, it doesn’t fit with the evidence of the timing with (the tenants).
“The reason it doesn’t fit is because it just wasn’t true.”
Justice Cynthia Peterson will deliver her charge to the jury Wednesday morning, and jury deliberations will begin immediately after.
