Two men have been charged in a deadly Surrey hit-and-run where the victim’s body was discovered 1.6 kilometres away from the location where he was initially struck.
Gaganpreet Singh, 21, and Jagdeep Singh, 22, are accused of dangerous driving, failing to stop at an accident and offer assistance to the injured person.
They’re also charged with indignity to a dead body or human remains and wilfully attempting to obstruct, pervert, or defeat the course of justice by disposing of, concealing or covering up evidence of a motor vehicle accident.
Lawyer Ravi Hira, K.C., who is not connected to the case, said hit-and-run allegations can pertain to drivers and passengers.
“If you say, ‘I know we hit somebody, let’s just leave, let’s get out of here – drive,’ you’re counselling leaving the scene of an accident,” the Hira Rowan LLP partner told Global News.
“As a party, you’re just as guilty.”
Surrey RCMP said the victim, identified in court documents as Jason Albert Grey, was hit around 1:40 a.m. on January 27 in the roadway north on University Drive and 104 Avenue. A witness saw a red Ford Mustang strike the man before taking off.
Grey’s body was found several blocks away at 109 Avenue and 132 Street.
A neighbour’s surveillance cameras captured a red Ford Mustang travelling along 132 Street shortly after 1:40 a.m., before stopping at 109 Avenue.
Police would not confirm whether the victim was dragged eight blocks before becoming dislodged from the suspect vehicle, but said the Mustang was quickly located and its three occupants taken into custody.
Hira said a charge of interfering with a dead body could relate to striking a person and knowing you’ve killed them.
“If you’re driving a car and you hit somebody … and you can feel a person is stuck to your car, it may be a reasonable inference to draw that you know you’ve killed that person,” Hira said.
“While it’s unusual, it’s terrible to keep driving with a dead body stuck to your car having killed them.”
An online obituary for Jason ‘Jay’ Albert Grey described him as the “innocent victim of a motor vehicle accident.”
“Jason was a deeply spiritual, sensitive and empathetic individual who would be the first to give the shirt off his back to anyone that needed help,” the obituary states.
Grey, who would have turned 46 this year, was a father of two and an inter-generational residential school survivor, who “found strength and healing in ceremonial and cultural practices”.
Described as a beautiful singer and a Sundancer, Grey sang with the ceremonial drum group of Darcy Demas, Oceanside Dakota Demas.
According to his obituary, Grey also enjoyed working as a plumber on new developments including student housing at UBC, the BC Children’s Hospital expansion project and the addition of the new glass tower to the Vancouver Stock Exchange heritage building.
Gaganpreet Singh and Jagdeep Singh, who were released from custody on undertakings after their arrests, are set to make their first court appearances on July 29.