The judge said there was reasonable doubt J.Y., who lost her unborn child in the shooting, was the intended target

A judge found Carleton Stevens not guilty of attempted murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend 'J.Y.' Wednesday

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A man who shot his pregnant ex-girlfriend at an East Vancouver print shop last year has been acquitted of attempting to murder her.

Justice Jennifer Duncan has found Carleton Stevens broke into the shop and fired a single shot that went through the arm of another man and struck the woman identified only as J.Y. in the stomach, causing her to lose her unborn child.

But Duncan said she wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that J.Y. was the intended target, or that Stevens was trying to kill her.

Evidence presented at trial showed Stevens had threatened both the man and J.Y. after the couple broke up.

‘Distressed and outraged’

Angela Marie MacDougall with Battered Women’s Support Services says the verdict sends a chilling message to victims of domestic violence and their advocates.

“We’re distressed and outraged and quite concerned about the state of the Canadian legal system and the extent to which the Canadian legal system can deliver a measure of justice for women victims of male violence.”

She thinks crown counsel may have made a strategic mistake when deciding which charges to pursue but says the more urgent issue is the failure to understand how the dynamics of domestic violence and domestic homicide played out in this case.

MacDougall says research into domestic violence has identified a number of risk factors in lethal cases, many of which were present in this case.

“Risk factor one, she was pregnant. Risk factor two, she was trying to leave. Risk factor three, the presence of guns. Risk factor number four, there was stalking. Risk factor number five, he’d threatened to kill her and [end] her pregnancy,” MacDougall explains.

The verdict comes two days before the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

“It’s a painful acknowledgment that we haven’t come far at all,” MacDougall says. “For all of us that will be commemorating the 30 years of the Montreal Massacre on Dec. 6, we have a quite frankly devastating road ahead.”

The verdict was handed down in Supreme Court in Vancouver on Wednesday.

The shooting happened on May 18, 2018.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to clarify J.Y. lost an unborn child in the shooting.