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Brooks’s mother Jennifer spoke to Postmedia Tuesday afternoon, sharing her relief two years and five months after her son’s death.

Photo by Beaudry Brooks / THE CANADIAN PRESS

“So happy. It just felt like a huge relief. We’ve all fought so very hard for Hudson and we were really elated there were charges,” she said. “All along, we wanted accountability.”

“To not have Hudson here has been a huge hole in our family. Huge. I feel we have a bit of closure here and we can breathe a sigh of relief right now and we can start to heal for our broken hearts.”

Cucheran is expected in court on Jan. 9, 2018. The B.C. Prosecution Service declined to answer emailed questions about the nature of the charges approved against the officer.

“As the charges are now before the court the B.C. Prosecution Service will have no further comment on the circumstances of the offence or specific details of the charge assessment process,” spokesman Daniel McLaughlin said in an email.

Doug King, executive director of the Together Against Poverty Society in Victoria, said he felt it was strange that a manslaughter charge was not recommended.

“It’s frustrating that the Crown has not given an explanation for why they would go in that direction, particularly in a case where you see a firearm being used,” said King, a police-accountability expert who previously worked with Pivot Legal Society.

“We can’t really speculate but the assumption is that there’s something about this case which leads the Crown to believe that maybe they couldn’t prove, necessarily, it’s the officer who was responsible for (Brooks’s) death. But all of this is going to come out in the criminal proceedings.”