A man accused of almost running over a Whitehorse RCMP officer has been cleared of criminal charges laid against him following a high-speed chase last August.

Territorial court Judge John Faulkner said Thursday afternoon it's highly probable that 28-year-old William Chad Ellis was the driver of the vehicle.

However, given the frailties of eyewitness evidence even if it's coming from two veteran police officers and the lack of any back-up evidence, it was not safe to find Ellis guilty, Faulkner ruled.

Last Aug. 19, Const. Craig Thur was working in the detachment shortly before 4 p.m. when he heard a report of a break and enter in progress in Porter Creek, with a description of an accused he recognized.

He drove up the Alaska Highway and noticed a familiar but suspicious vehicle lined up behind another vehicle waiting to pull out onto the Alaska Highway from Centennial Street, he testified Thursday.

Thur said he pulled up beside the maroon Grand Am, left his car and went to the driver's window on what was a clear and sunny afternoon. The driver was looking toward the passenger, and Thur could not see his face.

The passenger was shielding his face but Thur could see through the window that he was Dustin Lewis, the break-and-enter suspect in question.

As he was motioning to turn off the vehicle, the driver turned and looked directly him, though briefly, before speeding off, Thur testified.

A chase ensued, down the Fish Lake Road and along the Whitehorse Copper Haul Road to the McLean Lake Road, where other officers were in position to intercept.

The Grand Am raced by one vehicle, forcing Sgt. Roger Lockwood to leap out of the way, then bounced off another police vehicle.

The Grand Am, however, lost control and ended up in the ditch a short distance away. Both the driver and passenger fled before they could be apprehended. The driver ran north toward Granger and the passenger south toward McRae, court was told.

While the police dog went south after the passenger, it was a foot search by Const. Michael Buxton-Carr for the driver, who had lost his sandals and was likely barefoot.

The court heard that after a considerable time, as he approached the undeveloped section of Copper Ridge, Buxton-Carr noticed a man emerge from the bush about 25 metres away, walking quite gingerly, as though shoeless.

The man looked briefly at the officer, before bolting. He was not caught.

Back at the detachment, Thur had contacted a confidential source and learned that the driver could be Billy (William) Ellis, the boyfriend of the car's owner.

Thur remembered looking at a photo a week earlier of a man by that name who was wanted for violating his parole. Thur opened his e-mail to review the picture of a week earlier, and found it to be the driver of the car, William Ellis, the officer told the court.

He then showed Buxton-Carr two photos of Ellis. While Buxton-Carr rejected one photo simply because of its poor quality, he confirmed the second photo as the man he saw emerge from the woods.

Defence lawyer Elaine Cairns emphasized in her submissions to the court that the courts themselves have warned about the weakness of using only eyewitness identifications to make a case.

In a project in New York, of 130 convictions that were overturned, 78 per cent were overturned because of problems with eyewitness identifications, Cairns said.

She said there's been a case where 20 individuals have improperly identified an accused, so there is ample reason to believe that two people could be wrong.

Police officers, she added, are not immune to the frailties of eyewitness evidence.

'Eyewitness evidence is far less reliable than is generally believed, and the courts must be very cautious when relying on it when there is nothing else, and in this case, there is nothing else,' Cairns argued.

She said Thur did not recognize Ellis as the man whose picture he saw a week earlier until his source suggested it might be.

Buxton-Carr confirmed the connection only after Thur showed him the pictures, after his memory had been triggered by source, she said.

Cairns emphasized that both officers had what were nothing more than fleeting glimpses of the suspect, and did not know Ellis, as they had never dealt with him.

Judge Faulkner: 'In this case, while there is a high probability that William Chad Ellis was the driver of the vehicle involved in the high-speed chase, given the frailties of eyewitness evidence, it is not safe to convict.'

The judge dismissed the charges of assaulting a police officer with a weapon, namely the Grand Am, failing to stop for a police officer and dangerous driving.

Ellis was arrested last November and charged with the Aug. 19 crimes, as well as breaching his parole conditions resulting from his prison sentence for kidnapping two Alberta tourists at a Carmacks-area campground in 1996.

He has served his time for the parole violation, and was released from custody last month, pending the trial on these charges.

Lewis was arrested last August, and has been in pre-trial custody since.

He was sentenced to an additional two months in jail last month, given the nine months he was in jail prior to pleading guilty. The nine months in pre-trial custody is credited as 18 months, less the delay caused when he fired his lawyer last winter.

Lewis pleaded guilty to breaking into a Centennial Street home, resisting arrest and having stolen property in his possession two laptop computers and more than $5,000 in Indonesian currency.