A man insisted in Rossland Provincial Court today that a local firefighter attacked him in a downtown Trail alley in 2023, in the face of fierce cross-examination that tried to raise doubts about his memory.
Darryl Wong was the lone person on the witness stand during the first day of the trial for Greg Ferraby, who is accused of assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats. Fellow firefighters Richard Morris and Wesley Parsons were also initially charged in the case, but on Friday those charges were stayed.
Under direct examination by Crown counsel Bryan Pankoff, Wong said in a low voice that at the time of the incident he was living in his car.
He testified that Ferraby approached him on April 13, 2023 and said he “fit the description of someone who was following his niece and her mother around town.”
Wong said he denied following anyone and pressed Ferraby to call the police. “He told me ‘If you ever follow them around, I’m going to [expletive] you up.'”
Wong said he was “completely shocked … He really scared me. I was shaken.” Wong said he called police at the urging of a witness.
Wong also said he recognized Ferraby as someone who often responded to drug poisonings in the alley behind the shelter as a first responder. He added that years ago, while fishing at Sunningdale, someone also introduced him to Ferraby.
Assault in the alley
Wong testified that 10 days after the incident, he was having dinner with a friend in a Spokane Street apartment and went to take the garbage into a dumpster when he noticed a “commotion” in the alley one block over, where the homeless shelter was at the time.
He said three figures walked toward him, whom he recognized as Ferraby, Parsons, and Morris. He said Ferraby pointed at him and said “You lied to me. You put your hand on her.”
Wong said he replied: “What are you talking about?”
At that point, Wong said one of the men punched him in the head before Ferraby delivered a second punch, which left him on the ground. “I was not expecting it,” Wong said. “They were around me. There was nowhere to run.”
Wong said he was repeatedly punched and kicked, but he couldn’t keep track of the number of blows, which landed on his face, head, shoulder, and back. Wong said the attack took him by surprise, and he did not try to fight back.
He said the attack ended when he heard a woman yell “Call the police.” He recalled an officer arriving right away and two paramedics taking him to hospital.
Wong said he spent at least a month with his shoulder in a sling. He still has visible injuries on the back of his head and on part of his shoulder that did not rejoin properly, he said, and he experiences ongoing numbness and tightness.
After the incident, Wong said he started finding other places to park his car, staying away from the downtown, as he was worried at night that someone would come after him.
“I don’t deal well with trauma,” he testified, adding that he tries not to think about the incident “because it festers.”
Wong said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and he used to use cocaine, and then started using meth to wean himself from cocaine.
He said he has been off drugs for over two years, but at the time of the incident, he was still using meth, which he found calmed him. Wong said he now lives in the Lower Mainland because he’s afraid to come back to Trail.
Vigorous cross-examination
While defence counsel Mason Goulden didn’t outline his entire strategy in the case, during a vigorous cross-examination, he tried to raise doubts about Wong’s memory and whether he had accurately identified his attackers.
Goulden drew attention to inconsistencies in a statement Wong gave to police following the incident compared to what he says now. Goulden challenged Wong’s identification of the three men, suggesting he did not go to high school with one of them as he claimed, and didn’t know Ferraby’s last name until after the incident.
Under questioning, Wong admitted he filed a civil lawsuit in September 2024 against the three firefighters (which also named Kootenay Boundary Regional Fire Rescue and the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary). In that document, Wong said the men were wearing uniforms at the time of the assault, a detail contradicted by his police statement. He told the court today he isn’t certain what they were wearing.
Goulden suggested Wong didn’t know who the men were at the time of the assault, nor their full names. But with his voice raised, Wong insisted that while he couldn’t remember all the details, he recognized his attackers.
Goulden pointed out that in the police statement, Wong said he was unsure who two of the three men were. Wong said today he didn’t identify them at the time because he was “ashamed” and “confused” and had hoped someone else was actually responsible. He said anything else he couldn’t remember when he gave his statement was the result of the trauma he had suffered.
Challenged on not being able to recall Ferraby’s last name in his statement, Wong replied that it was “probably because I got punched and kicked in the head.”
Goulden tried to hammer at other inconsistencies in Wong’s police statement, at one point prompting Judge Craig Sicotte to ask whether it was a good use of court time, given the similarities of Wong’s answers.
Wong’s cross-examination will continue when the trial resumes Monday.
Sicotte is hearing the case alone. Prior to the start of testimony, Sicotte was told the Crown intends to call “multiple” witnesses, including several police officers.
Crown counsel Bryan Pankoff also said he expects the defence to present two Charter of Rights and Freedoms applications. The first is under the Jordan principle, which says criminal trials in provincial court should be completed within 18 months of a charge being laid.
The other application, which Pankoff said caught him off guard because he only learned about it yesterday, has to do with police conduct.
