Criminal negligence trial begins in sewage plant death of Fredericton teen

A trial began in Burton on Tuesday for a man accused of criminal negligence in the 2018 drowning death of a Fredericton teen, during a construction project at Fredericton's main wastewater treatment plant.

Jason King was a supervisor for Springhill Construction, which is also facing charges, when Michael Henderson, 18, died at a sewage treatment plant on Barker Street.

Based on what was said and shown in court, Henderson died on the site of an unfinished "secondary clarifier" — a round, pool-like structure used for distilling sludge and effluent during one of the later stages of sewage treatment.

At the outset of the trial, King, who is not in custody, entered a not guilty plea.

Crown prosecutor Christopher Lavigne read into the record an agreed upon "statement of admissions."

It included a timeline of events that took place around noon hour on Aug. 16, 2018, including the comings and goings of several people, based on closed-circuit television recordings.

Notably, King placed a hose into a manhole a metre or two away from the clarifier and turned on the water at a nearby fire hydrant. About half an hour later Henderson climbed into the empty concrete pool after his lunch break. 

About 30 minutes after that, a co-worker climbed from inside the clarifier to the top of scaffolding at its edge and alerted King that something was wrong. 

King ran to the side of the clarifier and then to the hydrant and turned off the water, appearing "visibly distraught."

The manhole was connected by underground pipe to a hole about a metre wide in the middle of the pool bottom, court learned from images shown and testimony of the Crown's first witness, Dan Harvey, city wastewater manager.

A package of photographs was submitted as evidence. The Crown said photos of the victim were included in the package, but would not be shown in court. In addition, said Lavigne, Henderson's family would be given a heads up about other sensitive material in case they wanted to leave the courtroom.

"None of it's going to be easy for anybody to deal with," said Justice Thomas Christie.

Some of the other submitted evidence includes a 911 call placed by King, a pathologist's report by Dr. Ken Obenson, who is expected to be called by the Crown as an expert witness, and some equipment from the site.

The victim's brother, who was also working at the clarifier the day Henderson died, is one of the witnesses the Crown plans to call. The victim's family has been told not to discuss testimony with him beforehand, said the other prosecutor on the case, Patrick McGuinty.

Christie approved a defence motion that all Crown witnesses be instructed to avoid the courtroom prior to being called upon to testify and expanded it to include all witnesses for both sides.

The Crown did not make an opening statement, as it's not a jury trial, but McGuinty did give a brief summary of the "Crown's burden."

"This is sort of a unique case," he said.

The Crown has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that King either did something, or failed to do something that he had a duty to do, which was a significant contributing factor to Henderson's death.

The ultimate question McGuinty said he is asking Christie to decide is "Do King's actions represent a marked and substantial departure from what a reasonable person would have done in the circumstances?"

Defence lawyer Patrick Hurley agreed to that general legal framework, although said he didn't accept exactly the way McGuinty had worded things and would present certain arguments about that later.

The Crown said it expected to take about 2½ weeks to get through its witnesses.