Sooke man in prison for shooting neighbour ordered to pay him, wife, $1 million in damages

One B.C. judge sent a man to prison for seven years for shooting and seriously wounding his neighbour. Now a second judge has ordered him to pay the victim and the victim’s wife more than $1 million.

Paul Tregear, 58, of Sooke on southern Vancouver Island, was sentenced last year after a jury found him guilty of aggravated assault for shooting Anthony Nelson, who lives on the adjacent acreage, after years of simmering tensions between the two families.

He also was found guilty at the criminal trial last year of using a firearm with intent to harm and for not having a licence for the rifle. He had walked on to the Nelsons’ land on May 7, 2022, and shot Nelson point blank in the stomach with a .22-calibre rifle.

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Nelson, 56, and his wife, Wendy Nelson, who watched him get shot, filed the lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court seeking about $1 million in damages.

That was awarded by Justice Julie K. Gibson, who found the legal wrongs of assault, battery and negligence were committed against Nelson, and that negligence and infliction of mental suffering were committed against his wife.

Tregear, who represented himself in the five-day hearing over video link from his federal prison, Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, maintained it wasn’t proven that he shot Nelson, until the last day when he suggested he wasn’t 100 per cent responsible.

That showed “exceptionally poor insight and a callous disregard for the Nelsons’ suffering,” said Gibson.

Ignoring the findings of guilt at his criminal trial amounted to an abuse of process, she said.

She said Nelson still carries the bullet in his abdomen and had emergency surgery followed by several hospitalizations for bowel obstructions, another surgery months later, a hernia and diet changes to manage the bowel obstruction.