An Okanagan man on trial in a case of residential looting claims to have no memory of the break-in and theft because of alcohol induced amnesia.
In the summer of 2014, thousands of West Kelowna residents had to evacuate their homes because of a raging wildfire.
While a Cobblestone Road family was out of their house for three days someone broke in, leaving with about a dozen bottles of booze, but also allegedly leaving something behind – fingerprints.
A RCMP forensic identification expert testified Tuesday she lifted fingerprints from several objects in the home and ran them through the police data bank of people previously fingerprinted.
Sgt. Sherrie Brunelle says the prints were a match to Nisa Kamhakoataew .
The 23-year-old is charged with break and enter with the intent to commit theft.
Kamhakoataew told the judge he was at a bush party the night of the break in, got very drunk, and has no memory of most of the night until waking up in the morning in a field.
Kamhakoataew testified he doesn’t think he broke into the home and claims he has no idea how his fingerprints got there.
But Mr. Justice Peter Rogers says there’s little doubt Kamhakoataew was in the home.
The issue he must determine is if the accused was so drunk he couldn’t form the intent to commit an offense that’s required for a conviction.
The prosecutor says there’s no air of reality to the so-called defense of intoxication, calling it a bare and bald assertion.
But Kamhakoataew’s lawyer says there’s no evidence to disprove it.
The judge will hand down his verdict at a later, unspecified date.