Suspect says he has counsel, but doesn’t
Remanded defendant Joshua Daniel Grant Burden, 50, of no fixed address, scheduled to stand trial this fall on charges including arson at MacTavish’s Source for Sports downtown
An arson suspect who angrily parted ways with his first lawyer told a court this week he’d been assigned new counsel, but it was learned he hasn’t even reapplied for legal aid.
Joshua Daniel Grant Burden, 50, of no fixed address, is scheduled to stand trial in October and November on an Oct. 12 charge of uttering threats, an Oct. 24 count of uttering threats to a police officer, an Oct. 29 charge of arson at MacTavish’s Source for Sports on Queen Street and three associated counts of probation violation.
He’d previously admitted to the charges and had been scheduled to be sentenced earlier this year, but during that hearing, he denied many of the facts, claiming he set a different fire, not that the one caused extensive damage to the downtown business.
His defence counsel, legal-aid staff lawyer Edward Derrah, was also removed from the case after he and Burden had a falling out.