Amanda Kok

The offender pleaded guilty to possession of a loaded prohibited, modified firearm and possession of that firearm in contravention of a court order prohibiting him from possessing firearms.

The Crown sought a penitentiary sentence of 3.5 years less credit for pretrial custody.

The court imposed a suspended sentence with three years of probation, crediting 1,032 days of pretrial custody (2 years, 10 months, and 2 days), with 900 days attributed to the firearm possession and 132 days consecutive for the breach of the prohibition order.

The sentencing was significantly influenced by the offender's Gladue report, which documented severe intergenerational trauma stemming from residential schools, multiple family deaths, and systemic disadvantage affecting his moral culpability.

The court emphasized rehabilitation and restorative justice through Indigenous community support services rather than additional incarceration.

The offender, a 69-year-old man with Parkinson's disease, was found guilty of attempted murder after strangling his intimate partner with a wire.

The offender had a prior conviction for aggravated assault against a previous intimate partner.

The court weighed the aggravating factors of intimate partner violence and the offender's related record against mitigating factors, including his age, degenerative disease, remorse, and exceptionally harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The court sentenced the offender to 8.5 years' imprisonment, less enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody.

L.C. pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm to his 13-year-old son, who suffered a broken clavicle after being pushed down stairs.

The Crown sought a conditional sentence of four months home incarceration and 18 months probation, emphasizing denunciation and deterrence for child abuse.

Defence sought a conditional discharge and 12 months probation, citing L.C.'s guilty plea, lack of prior record, and rehabilitative efforts.

The court denied a conditional discharge, finding it contrary to public interest given the seriousness of the offence and the need for denunciation and deterrence in child abuse cases.

A suspended sentence with a two-year probation order was imposed, along with a three-year firearms prohibition and a DNA sample order.

The court also considered the collateral consequences of restrictive bail conditions on the family.

This decision addresses two pre-trial applications in a criminal case involving an internet luring charge.

The accused sought to exclude electronic messages (Facebook) on the basis of an unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Crown sought to admit a statement made by the accused to the investigating officer, arguing its voluntariness.

The court found that the accused had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the electronic communications, and the warrantless search by police was a serious Charter infringement, leading to the exclusion of the evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter.

The court also found that the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused's statement was voluntary, citing inadequate cautioning and record-keeping by the police, rendering the statement inadmissible.

On a Crown summary conviction appeal from an acquittal on a child pornography charge, the court held that the trial judge erred in law in quashing the search warrant on the basis that the police had not investigated whether the subscriber address had a secure or unsecured wireless network.

Applying the law governing review of judicial authorizations, the court held that speculative possibilities of third-party use of a target IP address do not negate otherwise sufficient grounds in an ITO.

The appeal court found the trial judge failed to follow binding authority addressing the same wireless-network argument and improperly treated the absence of such information as fatal to the warrant.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The accused was convicted of being an occupant of a hotel room while knowingly permitting two 15-year-old females to use the room for acts of prostitution, contrary to section 171 of the Criminal Code.

The Crown proceeded by indictment, triggering a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 months imprisonment.

The accused challenged the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentence as violating section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (cruel and unusual punishment).

The court determined that a fit sentence without the mandatory minimum would be 60 days imprisonment followed by probation.

Finding that the 12-month mandatory minimum was grossly disproportionate to the circumstances of the case, the court declared the mandatory minimum unconstitutional as applied and imposed the alternative sentence.

The accused, an Unregulated Care Provider at a retirement residence, was charged with theft of 30 oxycodone tablets prescribed to a resident.

The Crown's case was circumstantial, establishing that the tablets and all records of their existence disappeared during a 16-hour period when only two UCPs had access to the locked narcotic box.

While the court found the evidence persuasive that the theft was committed by one of the two UCPs and that the accused was the likely culprit, the incomplete narcotic count sheet created reasonable doubt as to whether the tablets were present at the end of the accused's shift.

The accused was acquitted.

The appellant, Peter Bothwell, appealed his conviction for operating a motor vehicle with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol, arguing a violation of his s. 10(b) Charter right to counsel due to insufficient privacy during his calls.

At trial, the judge found no breach, concluding that Bothwell's concerns about privacy were remedied by him lowering his voice and that officers did not overhear his conversations.

The Superior Court, on appeal, upheld the trial judge's finding, determining that it was open to the trial judge to conclude that Bothwell had not met the burden of proving a Charter breach on a balance of probabilities, and that the finding was not a palpable and overriding error.

The appeal was dismissed.

The accused was convicted following trial of intentionally causing damage by fire to a property owned in part by another person, contrary to section 434 of the Criminal Code.

The accused set three fires in her home in Millbrook on June 10, 2014, designed to appear accidental.

The fires resulted in heat exhaustion injuries to three volunteer firefighters and costs of $10,125 to the Township of Cavan Monaghan.

The court imposed a sentence of five months imprisonment followed by two years probation with conditions including community service, counselling, and a restitution order.

The defendant brought an O'Connor application seeking production of medical records from the Peterborough Regional Health Centre and Brampton Civic Hospital relating to the complainant.

The court applied the test from R. v. McNeil, which requires assessment of true relevancy of targeted records.

The court found that the records contained apparent inconsistencies in the complainant's account of assaults and evidence of delusions at the time of the alleged assaults.

The court determined that the defendant's right to make full answer and defence outweighed the complainant's privacy interests and ordered production of relevant portions of the records, subject to a condition that they be used only for the defendant's defence.

The defendant brought a motion for production of medical records held by two hospitals pursuant to R. v. O'Connor.

The records related to the complainant's psychiatric hospitalizations.

The complainant, who retained counsel, opposed the application arguing the defendant had not met the "likely relevance" threshold.

The court ordered production of records from the first hospitalization on the date of the alleged assault, finding the complainant's mental state and hallucinations on that specific date were relevant to her credibility and the reliability of her evidence.

The court also ordered production of records from a second hospitalization several months later, finding a case-specific link between the complainant's delusional episodes and her allegations against the defendant.

The accused was tried on two arson-related offences arising from multiple fires discovered in her home on June 10, 2014.

She was charged with intentionally or recklessly causing damage by fire to property owned in part by another person (section 434 of the Criminal Code) and with causing damage by fire with intent to defraud an insurance company (section 435(1)).

The Crown's case was circumstantial.

The accused and her mother were the only two people in the home immediately before the fires started.

Fire investigators identified three separate areas of origin for the fires: the upstairs bathroom, the kitchen stove, and the basement electrical panel.

The court found that the fires were deliberately set and that the accused was responsible for setting them.

However, the court found that the Crown had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused set the fires with the specific intent to defraud her insurer.

The defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level exceeding the legal limit of 80 mg per 100 mL of blood.

The Crown relied on breath test readings of 158 and 163 mg per 100 mL.

The defendant challenged the reliability of the test results, arguing that her gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD) caused mouth alcohol that artificially elevated the readings.

The court found that the defendant failed to rebut the statutory presumptions of accuracy and identity of the breath test results.

The evidence did not establish that the approved instrument malfunctioned or was operated improperly.

The defendant was found guilty as charged.