Edmund King-Leung Chan

The offender was convicted of two counts of sexual assault against his 18-year-old stepdaughter.

The offences involved forced vaginal intercourse and occurred in the victim's home, constituting a severe breach of trust.

The court weighed significant aggravating factors, including the profound psychological impact on the victim, against mitigating factors such as the offender's lack of a criminal record and the collateral immigration consequences of likely deportation.

The court imposed consecutive sentences of 3 years for each count, resulting in a global custodial sentence of 6 years, along with a 20-year SOIRA order and a 10-year weapons prohibition.

J.B., convicted of multiple sexual assault charges, applied to reopen his judge-alone trial before sentencing to admit fresh evidence from the complainant's Victim Impact Statement (VIS) and sought a mistrial.

The new evidence concerned alleged inconsistencies between the VIS and trial testimony regarding physical injuries and school incidents.

The court applied the Palmer test for fresh evidence and the additional considerations from R. v. H.S. for VIS-based applications.

The court found a lack of due diligence by the defence and determined that the new evidence, even if admitted, would not have affected the outcome or B.B.'s credibility, as there were no plain and obvious inconsistencies.

The application to reopen the trial was dismissed, and the conviction stood.

In a historical sexual abuse prosecution, the court assessed the complainant’s adult testimony about repeated abuse allegedly committed by the accused parent over a six- to seven-year period beginning in childhood.

Applying the reasonable doubt standard and the W. (D.) framework, the court held that inconsistencies on peripheral details were expected given the passage of time and the complainant’s age during the events, and did not undermine the coherence of the core allegations.

The court rejected the accused’s denial as not credible, relied in part on email and text evidence as contextual admissions and evidence of a family secret, and found the complainant credible and reliable on the central acts.

Verdicts of guilt were entered on all charged counts.

Shahim Shokouh, charged with child pornography offences, brought two pre-trial Charter applications: one alleging a violation of his right to counsel (s. 10(b)) and another alleging an unreasonable search or seizure (s. 8).

The court dismissed both applications.

It found no re-triggering of the right to counsel upon arrest as there was no significant change in legal jeopardy, and police acted in good faith.

Even if a breach occurred, the evidence would not be excluded under s. 24(2) due to the minor nature of the breach, minimal impact on the accused's rights, and society's interest in adjudication on the merits.

The court also upheld the validity of the production order (s. 487.014 Criminal Code) and search warrant (s. 487(1)(b) Criminal Code), finding sufficient grounds and rejecting arguments of overbreadth regarding electronic devices.

The accused was tried on charges of accessing, possessing, and distributing child pornography arising from material found on computers in his bedroom and from Kik chats recovered through an iPhone backup.

The court relied on the accused's police admissions, forensic computer evidence, and the contents of the recovered chat sessions to distinguish accessing from possession and to assess the circumstantial case on distribution.

Applying Villaroman and W.(D.), the court held that the only reasonable inference was that the accused was the local user who transmitted offending images in the Kik chats.

The Crown proved all three offences beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant, Ryan Patterson, charged with two counts of possession of child pornography, brought an application under s. 24(2) of the Charter to exclude evidence (an iPod Touch, Samsung tablet, and Dell laptop) seized during the execution of a search warrant.

The court had previously ruled the warrant overbroad and invalidly obtained due to insufficient grounds in the Information to Obtain (ITO) to support the seizure of all listed devices.

Applying the R. v. Grant test, the court found the police conduct was careless but not flagrant, the impact on the accused's privacy was mitigated by discoverability (as grounds *could* have been established for a valid warrant), and society had a strong interest in adjudicating the serious charges on their merits.

The application to exclude the evidence was dismissed.

The defendant, Ryan Patterson, faced charges of possession of child pornography.

He brought a pre-trial application under s. 8 of the Charter to quash a search warrant for his residence.

The court found the warrant overbroad, as the Information to Obtain (ITO) lacked sufficient grounds to establish a credibly based probability that a wide range of computer systems and storage devices, beyond a smartphone, would contain evidence of the offence.

The ITO failed to explain how a smartphone-based KIK upload would lead to evidence on other devices.

Consequently, the warrant was quashed due to a violation of the defendant's Section 8 Charter rights.

The appellant appealed a Small Claims Court decision dismissing several defamation claims arising from a condominium requisition notice seeking his removal as president of the condominium board.

The appellate court found that the impugned words stating that the appellant failed to act honestly and in good faith were capable of being defamatory and that certain respondents had participated in publication of the material.

However, the court held that the respondents established the defences of justification, fair comment, and qualified privilege in the condominium governance context.

The evidence demonstrated a factual foundation for the statements relating to the appellant’s conduct as president.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.

The applicant condominium corporation sought declarations that the respondent, a former director, breached his duties under the Condominium Act and should be declared a vexatious litigant.

The respondent brought a cross-application seeking the removal of other directors and claiming oppression.

The court found that the respondent breached his duties as a director by acting unilaterally, rendering the board dysfunctional, and failing to exercise the care of a reasonably prudent person.

However, the court declined to declare him a vexatious litigant or grant a sweeping injunction against him.

The respondent's cross-application was dismissed in its entirety, as the court found no bad faith by the other directors and no breach of the respondent's reasonable expectations to support an oppression claim.