Dillon Bourgeois and Paxton Sheahan have avoided going to trial on attempted murder charges after changing their pleas to guilty of aggravated assault.
The joint judge-alone trial of the two Corner Brook men was scheduled to commence in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador Tuesday morning.
They have been in custody for more than two years since their arrest for the stabbing of Jonathan Park in Corner Brook on Oct. 29, 2015. They both pleaded not guilty in February of this year.
Before the trial was to start, the two changed their pleas and the more serious attempted murder charges against them were withdrawn. Sheahan also entered a guilty plea to breaching a probation order he was under at the time of the stabbing, while Bourgeois pleaded guilty to breaching a no-contact order for communicating with Sheahan while the two were in custody.
Crown attorney Alana Dwyer read in the facts of the case to presiding Justice Garrett Handregan. She told the court how Bourgeois and Park had been in a fight outside a Corner Brook bar earlier in the night on Oct. 29, 2015.
Park thought that was the end of their confrontation when they both walked away from the fight. However, Bourgeois and Sheahan attacked him not far from the bar later in the night.
The court heard Bourgeois stabbed Park multiple times as Sheahan restrained Park.
Dwyer will be calling evidence from a medical doctor Tuesday afternoon to provide the court with details of the serious injuries Park sustained from the encounter.
Dwyer, along with defence lawyers Karen Rehner and Jonathan Regan, will give Handregan their submissions on sentencing Wednesday morning.
