Alan Bruce Richter

The accused, a Registered Massage Therapist, was charged with two counts of sexual assault against female clients at a spa.

The Crown proved that the accused deliberately touched the breasts of both complainants without consent during massage treatments, despite being trained in the requirement to obtain explicit consent for breast massage.

The accused claimed the contact was accidental and therapeutic in nature.

The court rejected this defence, finding the actions were deliberate, lacked any therapeutic justification, and had a sexual character.

The accused was convicted on both counts.

The accused, a strip club dancer, was charged with aggravated assault after punching an intoxicated patron outside the club.

The patron fell and suffered internal head injuries and facial bruising.

The court rejected the accused's claims of self-defence and consensual fight, finding he was the aggressor.

However, the court found reasonable doubt as to whether the punch caused the patron's fall and subsequent internal head injuries, given the patron's extreme intoxication and the uneven pavement.

The court found the accused guilty of the lesser included offence of assault causing bodily harm based on the facial injuries sustained directly from the punch.

The appellant appealed his conviction entered by the Ontario Court of Justice on March 8, 2016.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge properly assessed the circumstantial evidence and that no error in law or clear and palpable factual error was demonstrated.

The court held that the failure to articulate alternative factual scenarios in the reasons for judgment does not equate to a failure to consider them.

The reasons were found to be adequate as the judge reviewed the evidence and made the basis for his finding clear.

The appeal was dismissed.

The accused was charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle, operation with excessive blood-alcohol concentration, and dangerous driving arising from an incident where he grabbed the steering wheel of a vehicle being driven by his former partner, causing it to crash into a ditch.

The Crown's case was not disputed on the facts of impairment and dangerous operation.

The sole issue was whether the defence of necessity applied.

The accused claimed he grabbed the wheel to prevent the driver from deliberately causing an accident after she threatened to harm them both.

The court found an air of reality to the necessity defence and, applying the three-part test from R. v. Perka and R. v. Latimer, determined that the Crown failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did not act out of necessity.

The accused was acquitted on all counts.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence.

The conviction appeal was abandoned.

On the sentence appeal, the parties agreed the trial judge misapprehended the appellant's criminal record.

The Court of Appeal reviewed the fitness of the sentence based on the actual record, which included 11 prior convictions for break and enter over 25 years.

The Court concluded the total sentence of 820 days was fit and dismissed the appeal.

The applicant sought costs against the Crown under s. 24(1) of the Charter, alleging misconduct for failing to disclose a police report related to officer misconduct.

The Crown brought a motion to summarily dismiss the costs application.

The court found no evidence of mala fides or intentional suppression of evidence by the Crown.

At most, the Crown made a good faith error in judgment regarding the relevance of the report.

The court concluded that the costs application had no reasonable prospect of success and granted the Crown's motion to dismiss it.

Several accused brought Garofoli applications seeking exclusion of evidence obtained through multiple Part VI wiretap authorizations in a large drug trafficking investigation.

They argued the affidavits failed to establish reasonable and probable grounds and improperly named them as known parties under s. 185(1)(e) of the Criminal Code.

The court held that one authorization related to a homicide investigation lacked sufficient grounds on the edited record and therefore violated s. 8 of the Charter; intercepted room‑probe communications from a residence were excluded under s. 24(2).

However, the court found that the principal drug trafficking wiretap authorizations were supported by reasonable grounds based on confidential informant information, surveillance, phone records, and associations among targets.

Applications to exclude evidence obtained under those authorizations were dismissed.

The applicants brought a preliminary motion in advance of a Garofoli application seeking excision of all references to a vehicle stop and resulting seizures that had previously been found to violate Charter rights.

The impugned events were relied upon in affidavits supporting Part VI wiretap authorizations, a production order for subscriber records, and search warrants for cellular phone contents.

The Crown argued that the applicants lacked standing to seek excision of evidence obtained in violation of third parties’ Charter rights.

The court held that where illegally obtained evidence forms part of the grounds for authorizations affecting the applicants’ privacy interests, the applicants are entitled to challenge the legality of that evidence and seek its removal from the supporting materials.

All references to the unlawful vehicle stop, arrests, and seizures were ordered excised from the affidavits and informations to obtain.

The applicants, charged with drug-related offences, brought a Section 8 Charter application to exclude evidence obtained from Dialled Number Recorder and tracking warrants.

They argued the Information to Obtain (ITO) was deficient due to unconfirmed confidential informant tips, tainted informant pools from police misconduct, and material non-disclosure by the affiant.

The court strongly condemned the egregious conduct of one officer and the sloppiness of the affiant in failing to disclose relevant police reports.

However, after excising inaccuracies and reading in omissions, the court found the remaining reliable information still provided reasonable grounds to suspect the applicant was trafficking drugs.

The application to exclude evidence was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge's finding that he threw a flaming object onto a shopping mall roof was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that there was an ample basis for the trial judge's conclusion and no reason to re-weigh the evidence.

The Crown appealed acquittals on sexual assault and indecent assault charges arising from historical child abuse allegations.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in law by treating mere opportunity for indirect contact as giving rise to an air of reality to collusion, and by misanalyzing the probative value and prejudicial effect of the proposed similar fact evidence.

Applying the similar fact evidence framework, the court held the judge adopted an impermissibly formulaic comparison of similarities and dissimilarities and overstated reasoning prejudice in a judge-alone trial.

The errors materially affected the acquittal, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed an order committing him for trial on a sexual offence, arguing the committal was arbitrary and lacked evidence of the complainant's absence of consent.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the appellant's own statements provided ample evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that the complainant was not consenting and could not consent to the sexual activity.