Brendan Thomas Coffey

The Crown appealed the respondent's acquittal on multiple charges including assault and sexual assault.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in law by adopting a "piecemeal" approach to assessing the evidence, specifically by discrediting the complainant's testimony before considering the probative force of a corroborating video.

This error might reasonably have had a material bearing on the acquittal.

The appeal was allowed, and a new trial was ordered on all counts.

The defendant, M.W., was charged with seven offences including assault, sexual assault, choking, forcible confinement, threatening, and breaching a court order against his common-law partner, K.L. The trial judge found K.L.'s testimony to be unreliable due to numerous material inconsistencies across her various statements and during trial.

The court also determined that an eight-second video clip, while appearing to show a sexual assault, was insufficient on its own to prove non-consensual interaction without reliable contextual evidence.

Consequently, the Crown failed to prove any of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, leading to M.W.'s acquittal on all counts.

This is an appeal from a summary conviction appeal judge's decision that overturned an acquittal in a sexual assault case and ordered a new trial.

The trial judge had acquitted the appellant, finding reasonable doubt regarding consent and the alleged initial assault, partly due to an inconsistency in the complainant's evidence and the public nature of the alleged act.

The summary conviction appeal judge (SCAJ) allowed the Crown's appeal, concluding the trial judge engaged in "myth-based reasoning" and erred in finding consent.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario allowed the appellant's appeal, restoring the acquittal.

The Court found the SCAJ erred by substituting its own factual conclusions, mischaracterizing the trial judge's reasoning as "myth-based," and failing to distinguish between a finding of lack of consent and a finding of reasonable doubt about consent.

The Court also noted the SCAJ's failure to apply the material error test required for Crown appeals from acquittal.

The accused, J.A., brought an application under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms seeking disclosure of source documents relied upon by an affiant for an Information to Obtain (ITO) a Feeney warrant for the arrest of a third party, R.S. The Crown opposed, arguing the materials were not "fruits of the investigation" related to J.A. and that J.A. lacked standing to challenge the warrant for R.S. The court denied the application, finding the investigative file unrelated to the case against J.A. and that J.A. had not established standing to challenge the third-party warrant.