D. Theriault-Harris

The youth accused, charged with sexual assault, brought a motion for directions and a Stage 1 application under the Criminal Code to admit text messages exchanged with the complainant.

The court divided the messages into two groups.

Most of the first group were deemed not to be private records, with some exceptions.

For the second group, which were conceded to be private records, the court allowed some to proceed to a Stage 2 hearing for potential use in challenging credibility.

However, the court held that explicitly sexual messages failed the Stage 1 threshold, as they had no lawful purpose and their admission would cause severe prejudice and harm to the young complainant.

The court also declined to prohibit the Crown from using the non-record messages at trial.

The offender was convicted of manslaughter following a group attack on a TTC bus passenger.

The offender punched the victim to the ground twice, preventing his escape, while fully aware that a co-accused possessed and was using a knife to stab the victim.

The court weighed significant mitigating factors, including the offender's troubled upbringing, lack of prior record, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions, against the gravity of the unprovoked group attack.

The court rejected a conditional sentence, finding it would not adequately reflect denunciation and deterrence, and imposed a sentence of 2 years plus one day in a federal penitentiary, in addition to 30 months of enhanced pre-sentence custody credit.