CORNER BROOK — After submitting an application to reactivate an arson charge against a Trout River man, the provincial Crown has decided not to pursue the matter.
Conrad Crocker, 30, was originally charged with breaking and entering and setting fire to the Trout River medical clinic last June.
The fire caused over $36,000 in damage to the Western Health facility and left the town without a clinic for about 11 weeks.
Crocker was charged with breaking and entering and committing an offence, arson with damage to property and two counts of failure to comply with the condition of an undertaking or recognizance. Those charges were stayed during a court appearance late in June.
In provincial court on Tuesday, Crown attorney Lori St. Croix told Judge Catherine Allen-Westby that her office has determined that there is no reasonable likelihood of Crocker being convicted of the charges and that the application to reactivate the stay was being withdrawn. She also indicated that the charges against Crocker would be withdrawn.
Crocker was not off the hook completely, however, as he still has outstanding charges of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm, besetting or watching a dwelling house or other place, and failure to comply with a probation order.
Those matters were set over to Feb. 26.
Meanwhile, Crocker’s co-accused in the medical clinic fire, Eugene Steadman Victor Crocker, was sentenced in Supreme Court in Corner brook on Jan. 4 to two years, 11 months and five days in jail. Eugene Crocker admitted that he set the fire at the clinic.
Justice Allan Seaborn sentenced Eugene Crocker to three years on the arson charge and three months each, to be served consecutively to the arson sentence, on charges of possession of property obtained by crime and resisting a peace officer. Crocker was given one-for-one credit on the 208 days he’d already served in custody.
