Christine Keitha Jenkins

The respondent was convicted after a jury trial of assault by choking, assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, and criminal harassment against the victim.

He was acquitted of uttering a threat to cause death.

The Crown sought judicial determination of facts for sentencing purposes and for a s. 752.1 assessment.

The respondent challenged the credibility and reliability of the victim's evidence on several material points, including who initiated contact, the frequency of meetings, and who informed the respondent of his mother's death.

The court conducted a thorough credibility assessment of both witnesses and made findings on the disputed facts, ultimately accepting the victim's evidence as more reliable and credible despite some inconsistencies.

Brendan Bananish pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, failure to comply with recognizance, and failure to comply with probation.

The Crown sought a Long-Term Offender (LTO) designation and an eight-year penitentiary sentence.

The defence opposed the LTO designation and sought a shorter sentence.

The court designated Bananish an LTO, imposed a global penitentiary sentence of seven years and three months (with 63 months credit for pre-sentence custody), and ordered an eight-year Long-Term Supervision Order, a lifetime weapons prohibition, and a DNA order.

The court considered Bananish's extensive criminal record, history of intimate partner violence, psychiatric diagnoses (antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, severe substance use disorder), and repeated breaches of court orders, while also acknowledging his Indigenous background and related systemic factors.

Brittany Johnston-Brazil pleaded guilty to use of an imitation firearm, aggravated assault, unlawful confinement, and uttering a death threat.

The court considered aggravating factors, including the prolonged, sadistic nature of the assault, the victim's vulnerability, and the offender's primary role in the violence, against mitigating factors such as her youth, lack of prior record, guilty plea, and rehabilitation efforts.

The judge imposed a global sentence of six years and six months, comprising five years and six months for aggravated assault, concurrent sentences for unlawful confinement and death threat, and a consecutive one-year sentence for the imitation firearm use.

The defendant, Jason Lacroix, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, commission of an indictable offence with an imitation firearm, and unlawful confinement.

The court considered his background, including a history of substance abuse, a traumatic brain injury, and a lengthy criminal record, alongside his lesser degree of responsibility compared to a co-accused.

The Crown sought a global sentence of seven years, while the defence proposed four to five years.

The court sentenced the defendant to a global sentence of five years, less pre-sentence custody, emphasizing the parity principle and his subordinate role in the offences.

Jason Hadfield was found guilty of robbery and manslaughter.

The Crown applied to have him found not criminally responsible (NCR) due to mental disorder and designated as a high-risk accused (HRA).

Both parties agreed on the NCR finding due to schizophrenia.

The court then considered the HRA designation, which the defence resisted.

The court reviewed the nature of the offences, the accused's repetitive violent behaviour, current mental condition, past treatment, and expert opinions.

The court found a substantial likelihood that the accused, if unrestrained and untreated, would use violence endangering others.

Consequently, the accused was designated a high-risk accused, requiring detention in a hospital with strict conditions on absence.

The accused applied for costs against the Crown following a trial where he was convicted of theft and assault but acquitted of sexual assault.

The application stemmed from the Crown's delayed and initially redacted disclosure of a complainant's 911 call, which necessitated a formal disclosure application and caused a lengthy trial adjournment.

The court dismissed the application, finding that while the disclosure failures were systemic and inadvertent, they did not constitute a "marked and unacceptable departure from the reasonable standards expected of the prosecution" or result in "extreme hardship" to the accused, which are the high thresholds required for an award of costs against the Crown in criminal matters.

The accused pleaded guilty to multiple offences including assault with weapon, forcible confinement, and assault causing bodily harm arising from a pattern of domestic violence against his intimate partner over seven years.

The Crown sought a dangerous offender designation.

The court declined to designate the accused as a dangerous offender, finding that his violent conduct was not intractable and that there was a realistic possibility of eventual control in the community through intensive treatment offered by Corrections Canada.

The court instead designated him as a long-term offender and imposed a sentence of three years imprisonment followed by a ten-year long-term supervision order with conditions including dialectical behaviour therapy, substance abuse counselling, and intimate partner violence counselling.

The applicant, Raymond Burke, sought a stay of proceedings for charges including kidnapping and sexual assault, laid over 30 years prior.

He argued unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter and denial of the right to make full answer and defence under s. 7 due to lost evidence.

The court found a 12.5-year period of Crown delay, from when an extradition treaty came into force in 2003 until his return to Canada in 2015, during which Canadian authorities failed to seek his extradition despite knowing his whereabouts and incarceration in the U.S. This delay, coupled with significant inferred and real prejudice from destroyed evidence, was deemed unreasonable under both the Jordan and pre-Jordan (Morin) frameworks.

The application for a stay of proceedings was granted.

The accused was charged with assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm after stabbing his best friend with the neck of a broken vodka bottle during an intoxicated argument.

The accused claimed self-defence, asserting he feared grievous bodily harm from the complainant.

The court rejected the self-defence claim, finding that although the accused may have reasonably believed force was being used or threatened, the act of stabbing was not done for the purpose of defence and was unreasonable in the circumstances.

The court found the stabbing was an act of anger rather than self-defence, particularly as the complainant was turning to walk away when stabbed.

The accused was found guilty as charged, with the assault causing bodily harm conviction stayed.