During a criminal jury trial involving allegations including kidnapping and extortion, the Crown sought to introduce oral statements attributed to one accused that differed from the version summarized in an earlier pre‑trial ruling on voluntariness.
The updated police testimony suggested that the accused named co‑accused as involved in the offence.
The trial judge held that the credibility of the differing versions of the statement was a matter for the jury and that the earlier ruling on voluntariness could not be revisited mid‑trial based on a changed evidentiary landscape.
Applying the discretionary exclusionary framework for prejudicial evidence, the court concluded that the probative value of the “new” version was not outweighed by prejudice to the co‑accused.
The statement would therefore be admitted without editing, with appropriate limiting instructions to the jury that it could only be used against the declarant accused.
