Christine Elinor Mary Bartlett-Hughes

In a criminal appeal subject to a continuing publication ban, the appellant challenged convictions arising from historical sexual abuse allegations by multiple complainants.

The court held that the jury trial was rendered unfair by the admission of inadmissible hearsay, bad character, extrinsic misconduct, opinion, and some prior consistent statement evidence, together with inadequate limiting and curative instructions.

Although some relationship and narrative evidence was admissible for limited purposes, the charge failed to prohibit propensity reasoning and failed to properly confine the jury’s use of several categories of evidence.

Given that the case turned centrally on credibility and reliability, the errors were not harmless and could not be cured by the proviso.

The appeal from conviction was allowed, the verdicts were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant was convicted of multiple counts of historical physical and sexual abuse against his step-daughter.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge failed to properly assess the reliability of the complainant's testimony and improperly shifted the burden of proof regarding the absence of corroborating police and school records.

The Court of Appeal (majority) allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding the trial judge erred by focusing on the complainant's sincerity rather than the reliability of her memories of distant events, and by failing to consider whether the absence of mandatory child abuse reports raised a reasonable doubt.

The appellant was charged with possessing child pornography between 1999 and 2006.

He claimed he collected the materials to create an artistic exhibition about child exploitation.

The trial judge acquitted him based on the pre-2005 artistic merit defence and the post-2005 legitimate purpose defence.

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal and entered a conviction.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge erred in law by applying the artistic merit defence to materials lacking artistic merit, and by using a purely subjective test for 'legitimate purpose'.

However, the Court of Appeal exceeded its jurisdiction by making its own factual findings to substitute a conviction instead of ordering a new trial.

The accused was acquitted at trial of two counts of sexual assault.

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittals and ordered a new trial, finding the trial judge erred in law by taking a piecemeal approach to the evidence.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the acquittals, holding that the trial judge did not fail to consider the evidence as a whole.

The Court clarified that a trial judge's assessment of evidence only constitutes an error of law allowing a Crown appeal from an acquittal in limited circumstances, such as when a reasonable doubt is tainted by a legal error.

The respondent and his partner engaged in consensual erotic asphyxiation.

The partner consented in advance to being choked into unconsciousness and to the sexual activity that would occur while she was unconscious.

The trial judge convicted the respondent of sexual assault, finding that a person cannot legally consent to sexual activity while unconscious.

The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the Crown's appeal and restored the conviction, holding that the Criminal Code requires a conscious, operating mind throughout the sexual activity to provide valid consent, and advance consent to unconscious sexual activity is not recognized in law.

The moving party, Maggie's: The Toronto Sex Workers' Action Project, brought a motion to intervene in an appeal concerning the constitutionality of prostitution-related offences.

The moving party sought to raise a new challenge under s. 15 of the Charter and to argue that the legislation was impermissibly driven by moral views.

The court dismissed the motion to intervene on the s. 15 issue, finding that the evidentiary record was not developed for such a challenge and that allowing it would be unfair to the parties and delay the appeal.

The court also declined to grant separate intervener status on the morality issue, as it was already being raised by others, but permitted the moving party to join an existing intervener group.

The appellant, who had been subjected to years of coercive control and psychological abuse by her husband, stabbed him to death while he slept.

At trial, the jury acquitted her of murder but convicted her of manslaughter, and she was sentenced to eight years in prison.

She appealed the conviction, arguing self-defence should have been left to the jury, and appealed the sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no air of reality to the self-defence claim as she did not apprehend imminent death or grievous bodily harm.

However, the Court allowed the sentence appeal, finding the trial judge erred in minimizing the mitigating impact of the psychological abuse and mischaracterizing the offence as a 'near murder'.

The sentence was reduced to time served (approximately three years).

The appellant appealed his convictions for driving while disqualified under s. 259(4)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The information alleged he was disqualified by an order under s. 259(1).

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and entered acquittals, finding that the s. 259(1) order had expired at the time of the offences.

Furthermore, the Crown failed to prove that the appellant's provincial licence suspension was in respect of his prior dangerous driving conviction, which was required to rely on the definition of disqualification under s. 259(5).

The accused was charged with possession of child pornography collected between 1999 and 2006.

At trial, he admitted the images were child pornography but claimed he collected them for a planned artistic exhibition to raise awareness about child exploitation.

The trial judge acquitted the accused, finding he could rely on the pre-2005 'artistic merit' and 'educational purpose' defences, as well as the post-2005 'legitimate purpose' and 'no undue risk of harm' defence.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the pre-2005 defences did not apply because the materials themselves lacked artistic or educational merit.

Furthermore, the post-2005 defence did not apply because the accused's possession of thousands of images, stored insecurely over seven years, posed an undue risk of harm to children.

A conviction was substituted.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Review Board granting him a conditional discharge rather than an absolute discharge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was not unreasonable given the evidence and the agreement of all parties that the appellant continued to pose a significant risk to the public.

The Court noted the appellant's progress on new medication but held that consideration of an absolute discharge or Community Treatment Order was premature on the current record.

The accused appealed his conviction for sexual assault.

The complainant and the accused were intimate partners who engaged in erotic asphyxiation.

The complainant testified that she consented in advance to being choked into unconsciousness and to the sexual activity that occurred while she was unconscious.

The trial judge convicted the accused, holding that a person cannot legally consent in advance to sexual activity while unconscious.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and entered an acquittal, finding that the Criminal Code does not prohibit a person from consenting in advance to sexual touching expected to occur while unconscious, and that the Crown could not rely on bodily harm to vitiate consent on a charge of sexual assault simpliciter.

The appellants, organizations promoting traditional conceptions of morality, sought leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an application challenging the constitutionality of prostitution provisions in the Criminal Code.

The motion judge dismissed their motion.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found the motion judge erred, noting the appellants had a real, substantial, and identifiable interest and an important perspective distinct from the parties.

The appeal was allowed and the motion to intervene was granted.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for the killing of his mother.

He raised three grounds of appeal: that the trial judge erred in dismissing a mistrial application based on a reasonable apprehension of bias after the appellant allegedly overheard the judge discussing expert evidence with a deputy; that the trial judge erred in finding the appellant failed to establish the defence of not criminally responsible; and that the sentence was unfit.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge conducted a sufficient factual inquiry regarding the bias allegation, that the weighing of conflicting medical opinions on the NCR defence was within the trial judge's exclusive province, and that the sentence was fit given the brutal nature of the killing.

The appellant was convicted of prostitution-related offences, including living off the avails of a person under eighteen, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.

On his sentence appeal, the appellant sought to challenge the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentence for the first time.

The Crown objected.

The Court of Appeal held that an appellate court should generally decline to hear a new constitutional argument if it requires resolving contentious evidentiary disputes that were not vetted at trial.

The court directed that the appellant could not raise the constitutional issue on his sentence appeal.

The appellants appealed their convictions.

The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred in foreclosing the appellants from challenging the factual underpinnings of the counselling to commit murder charges for which the appellant Vanderheyden stood convicted.

The Court of Appeal agreed, noting that the counselling convictions provided a significant boost to the credibility of two unsavoury witnesses.

The court found that the curative proviso could not be applied, as it could not be satisfied that Vanderheyden would not have testified had the trial judge ruled differently.

The appeal was allowed, convictions set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second-degree murder.

The trial judge erred by instructing the jury on the unconstitutional objective intent language in section 229(c) of the Criminal Code and by providing the jury with unedited written copies of the provision.

The Court of Appeal found the error fatal to the murder conviction.

On consent of both parties, the Court substituted a conviction for manslaughter and imposed a sentence of eight years' imprisonment.

The appellant appealed his convictions for fraud and encouraging others to act on a forged document, for which he received a four-year sentence and a restitution order.

He argued he was entitled to use investors' funds as he chose and raised procedural fairness issues regarding his self-representation at trial.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding overwhelming evidence that the appellant misrepresented how funds would be held and used them for operational expenses.

The court also found the trial judge provided appropriate assistance to the self-represented appellant and did not unfairly restrict his cross-examination.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal for oral reasons delivered in open court.

The sentence appeal was adjourned to a later date to allow the appellant to make submissions.

The appellant's request for an extension of bail pending the sentence appeal was denied, as any potential reduction in sentence was unlikely to reduce his remaining day parole, and bail was revoked.

The accused was charged with wilfully promoting hatred after police seized CDs containing hate-promoting lyrics from a table he was manning at a skinhead party.

The trial judge acquitted the accused, finding insufficient evidence that he sold the CDs.

The summary conviction appeal court allowed the Crown's appeal and ordered a new trial.

On further appeal, the Court of Appeal restored the acquittal.

The Court held that while there was evidence of intent, there was no evidence the accused actually communicated the statements in the lyrics.

Furthermore, the Crown could not rely on a new theory on appeal that the CD covers themselves promoted hatred, as this would offend the rule against double jeopardy.

The appellant appealed his conviction for first-degree murder, arguing the trial judge erred by refusing to admit an out-of-court statement he made to his father and by failing to give a 'no probative value' instruction regarding post-offence conduct.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the hearsay statement did not meet the necessity requirement as the appellant was available to testify, and the jury instruction on post-offence conduct was fair and did not cause significant prejudice.