Bleck trial now in the hands of jury after defence points to key witness as driver

A jury is deliberating after the defence wrapped up its closing arguments on Tuesday in the trial of Jesse Bleck.

The deliberations come more than four years after the collision that threw a young cyclist 30 feet in the air and left him with life-altering injuries. It happened on Exeter Road in London on July 21, 2019. Bleck, 26, has been charged with failing to remain at the scene of an accident causing bodily harm and driving while prohibited. 

His lawyer, Geoff Snow, argued there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his client was behind the wheel that night. Bleck was one of the three men in the car at the time of the collision and ran when the car stopped in the parking lot of the Casa Blanca Motel. 

Instead, Snow said, the jury should consider why key witness Ahmad Jamal confessed to police in 2019 that he was driving the Nissan Altima that struck then-17-year-old Tristan Roby, and why that confession wasn't taken seriously by London Police Const. Bernie Martin. 

"Does disbelieving a true statement make that statement a lie?" Snow said to the jury. 

"People deny things that are true. That doesn't make the thing that's being denied untrue. Refusing to accept the truth doesn't make it any less true." 

In his closing arguments yesterday, the Crown prosecutor told the jury it should disregard Jamal's testimony as unreliable, and that there is more concrete evidence to point to Bleck as the driver. 

But Snow disagreed. Jamal may have struggled to keep his story straight during his testimony, but that's because by then his mind was more fragile than when he first told Martin he had volunteered to be Bleck's designated driver, Snow said. 

Between then and now, said Snow, Jamal has lost faith in the system: He'd been falsely charged for a robbery he didn't commit in a separate case and fought to prove his innocence, and he wasn't believed when he tried to tell the truth — saying he was the driver of the Nissan, and that at first he thought he'd hit a deer before realizing he'd hit a person. 

"Is it any wonder Mr. Jamal said he doesn't know what the truth is?" said Snow, referring to Jamal's testimony. 

Jamal's story flipped under Martin's coercion, Snow said. Two months prior to a February 2022 phone call between the two, Jamal's mother had died, he'd successfully proven his innocence in the robbery but then served time for another case, and, as Snow said, "he did not want to go back" to jail. 

During the phone call with Martin, Jamal was told he'd been forced to testify. Martin, said Snow, convinced Jamal he'd perjure himself if he told his original story, and was led to believe the best course of action was to say he wasn't the driver. 

"Officer Martin wasn't trying to get the truth in that phone call," said Snow. "He was trying to get the story he wanted in this case." 

Snow finished by reminding the jury that if it is unable to decide whether or not it believes Jamal, then the law requires it find Bleck not guilty.