Man convicted for assault at gay MLA office drops appeal

‘It’s time to move on,’ says Michael Melvin Williams

The man found guilty of assault in the Feb 21, 2014, attack at Vancouver West End MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert’s office, tells Daily Xtra he has dropped his appeal of the conviction.

Michael Melvin Williams previously told Daily Xtra he had filed the appeal “on the grounds that without Mr Chandra Herbert’s hysterics in the press this would have never come to trial.”

“Aside from the door being broken it was a very minor incident and it wasn’t an attack,” he said May 6.

Williams withdrew the appeal in late May, telling Daily Xtra June 9 that the cost of taking the case through an appeal was prohibitive. He says he was quoted $2,500 as the cost of getting the transcripts needed to move ahead in BC Supreme Court.

“I don’t think justice was done,” he says. “It’s just not in anyone’s best interest. I felt like I had a case for appeal.”

“It’s time to move on,” he says.

On Jan 15, 2015, Williams was given a suspended sentence and one year’s probation by Provincial Court Judge David St Pierre.

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Power, News, Crime, Human Rights, Vancouver

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