A 31-year old man who faces multiple charges after leading a wild 120 kilometre police pursuit remains in custody.
The Crown and defence have agreed to a consent remand for Kristopher Walter Kowalyk of Calgary, who appeared in North Battleford provincial court Thursday.
It was his second court appearance. Kowalyk returns to court Aug. 8 at 11 a.m., for election.
It appears the case could see some sort of resolution and pleas entered soon. Defence counsel Andrew Lyster told the court Thursday the matters were "resolvable but not today." Kowalyk has leave to appear by closed-circuit TV in his next appearance.
Kowalyk faces 16 charges following a l90-minute chase in Northwest Saskatchewan Tuesday morning July 30. His charges include two counts of assaulting a police officer; break and enter; flight from police; dangerous driving; four counts of possession of property obtained by crime with a value greater than $5,000; two counts of possession of property obtained by crime with value less than $5,000; possession of break and enter instruments; possession of a controlled substance; and four counts of mischief under $5,000.
The pursuit began at 10:20 a.m after Unity RCMP, investigating a break and enter and multiple thefts of vehicles, received a report of a suspicious vehicle. The vehicle was seen pulling a trailer stolen from a business at Kerrobert and was spotted near Muddy Lake, south of Unity.
Police say the suspect vehicle attempted to ram the police unit and fled, with Kowalyk leading members on the extensive chase, mainly on grid roads in the area as well as Highways 21, 771 and 31.
Attempts to deploy spike belts to stop the vehicle were made at two separate locations, but police said the suspect drove through ditches, fences and fields to avoid them. Police said the suspect had even driven through a golf course in Macklin at one point, and had rammed an RCMP unit before attempting to flee westbound on the CPR tracks. The wheels of the trailer blew out and the vehicle was forced to stop. The suspect then attempted to start a stolen snowmobile in his possession before finally being taken into custody. Railway traffic was stopped for about two hours due to the incident.
Kowalyk was taken into custody and his first court appearance was Wednesday in provincial court in North Battleford. His Aug. 1 court date was scheduled as a show cause hearing but ended up being another brief appearance. The Crown is proceeding by indictment.
