B.C. couple awarded damages against neighbour after 2022 shooting
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VICTORIA – The British Columbia Supreme Court has awarded more than $1 million in damages in a shooting that left a man with lifelong injuries and his wife traumatized after witnessing the violent confrontation.
Anthony and Wendy Nelson of Sooke, B.C., sued their neighbour Paul Tregear for shooting Anthony Nelson at point-blank range with a .22-calibre rifle in May 2022.
Tregear was convicted of aggravated assault and firearms charges last year and sentenced to seven years in prison.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruling released Monday says Tregear acted as his own lawyer, attending court by video in prison, and claimed it was “unproven” that he’d shot the man, despite being found guilty.
Justice Julie Gibson awarded $767,000 to Anthony Nelson for assault and battery and more than $279,000 to Wendy Nelson for intentional infliction of mental suffering for seeing her husband get shot by Tregear.
The ruling in civil court also ordered Tregear to pay the provincial government about $64,000 in health-care costs related to the shooting, which occurred after a history of disputes between the neighbours.
Gibson chided Tregear in the ruling for not admitting to the shooting during the civil trial, showing “exceptionally poor insight and a callous disregard for the Nelsons’ suffering.”
“His position on liability, at least up until his closing, constitutes an abuse of process that ignores the findings of his guilt at his criminal trial,” she said.
“I find Mr. Tregear liable to Mr. Nelson for the tort of assault and battery and to Ms. Nelson for intentional infliction of mental suffering. Even if I were not bound by the findings in the criminal proceeding, I would have made the same liability findings on the evidence before me in this trial.”
The sentencing ruling in Tregear’s criminal trial says he claimed he brought the gun onto the Nelsons’ property to warn them about a bear, but the judge found Tregear lied about the bear and went to his neighbour’s property with the intention of shooting the man.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2026.