Stafford murder trial gets change of venue
The Canadian Press Posted: Mar 4, 2011 6:58 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 4, 2011 6:58 PM ET
Michael Rafferty is accused of killing the eight-year-old schoolgirl. (Dave Chidley/CP) A man accused of killing an eight-year-old girl after she was snatched on her way home from school will stand trial in a neighbouring city, a judge decided on Friday.
Michael Rafferty, charged with abduction and first-degree murder in the death of Tori Stafford, is now expected to go on trial next year in London, Ont.
Tori disappeared in April 2009 outside her elementary school in Woodstock, Ont., in a case that traumatized the town of 30,000.
"What is clear ... is that London is not Woodstock," Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney wrote in his decision.
"It is a completely different city, a half-hour drive away."
Three months after her disappearance, Tori's remains were found in a rural area about 100 kilometres north of her hometown.
Rafferty's co-accused, Terri-Lynne McClintic, pleaded guilty last year to first-degree murder.
Defence concerns that Rafferty could not get a fair trial in Woodstock prompted the request to change venues.
At a hearing in February, the Crown consented to moving the trial out of Woodstock
"It is perhaps reasonable to presume that the local community, particularly where it is a small one, will have a strong emotional reaction to a crime of this nature," Heeney wrote.
"The citizens of a neighbourhood where a young child is abducted might well feel some sense of personal violation, because one of their own was plucked from the very streets that they and their own children walk on a daily basis."
London is 50 kilometres west of Tori's hometown.
In his decision, Heeney wrote that the potential for the facts of the case to create prejudice would exist wherever the trial is held.
But he decided the risk was no greater in London, which is in Middlesex County, than anywhere else.
Nor was there a reason to believe citizens in the county would feel "any sense of personal violation" from the crime.
"What they may well feel is abhorrence at the fact that a young child was abducted and murdered by someone," Heeney wrote.
"Such feelings would not be unique to Middlesex County, but would be shared by many people throughout the province."
Normally, local citizens try local crimes, but venue changes can be sought in cases where adverse publicity might have tainted a potential jury pool.
Rafferty's next appearance is slated for April 6 in London, though he does not have to appear in person that day.
© The Canadian Press, 2011
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