(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

A man charged with attempting to kill three RCMP officers following a shooting and a car chase outside Falkland in December 2019, will be sentenced early next year.

Darwyn Allen Curtis Sellars appeared by video at the Vernon courthouse today, Nov. 10, along with his lawyer Nelson Selamaj, who said his client will plead guilty at a sentencing hearing in January 2021.

The move means Sellars will plead guilty to some of the 15 charges that were laid against him following his arrest.

Few details are known about what transpired during the Dec. 2, 2019 incident that saw Highway 97A between Falkland and Westwold in the North Okanagan closed for several hours.

Following the incident, the RCMP released a statement saying an early morning call about a suspicious vehicle in the Falkland area escalated and shots were fired as the vehicle fled police. RCMP then used a spike belt to stop the vehicle outside of Westwold and arrested Sellars, born 1988, along with the co-accused in the case, Jennifer Patricia Singleton, born 1981. Details of Singleton's file were not discussed in court today, and she is currently scheduled for a preliminary inquiry Dec. 8.

Following the incident, Sellars was charged with three counts of attempted murder, as well as failing to stop a motor vehicle while being pursued by a police officer and other firearms and driving-related offences.

Which of these charges Sellars will plead guilty to is as yet unknown, although it is unlikely he'll plead guilty to the attempted murder charges.

Attempted murder is notoriously difficult to prove in court. A recent case in the Lower Mainland saw a Surrey man who shot a police officer on a Skytrain station platform convicted of aggravated assault, and not attempted murder after the judge ruled the Crown did not prove the man intended to kill the officer. In Vernon, Oct. 27, two men charged with attempted murder following a 2017 stabbing had the charges reduced to aggravated assault.

Along with the attempted murder file, Sellars indicated he would plead guilty on several other files containing more than a dozen charges from Abbotsford, Merritt, Kamloops and Williams Lake. Sellars will enter guilty pleas charges related to an armed robbery in Merritt, and another incident later that day in Kamloops where he was charged with fleeing from police, dangerous driving, and mischief under $5,000. These incidents took place Dec. 2, 2019, the day before Sellars allegedly shot at police near Falkland.

Sellars did plead guilty to several other offences today, including two driving while prohibited charges and breaching his probation being in a beer garden in Williams Lake. He also pleaded guilty to another breach of probation by failing to write an apology letter to a victim.

Sellars has a lengthy criminal record and was sentenced to 11 months in jail in 2015 following an incident where a helicopter and police tracking dogs were used to find him in the bush outside 100 Mile House, according to a 100 Mile Free Press report.

Sellars is next to appear in court Jan. 18, 2021 for a sentencing hearing.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2020