Eliott Behar

The appellant, a nursing home manager, was convicted of assaulting elderly residents.

Two of the complainants died before trial, and the trial judge admitted their videotaped statements to police under the principled exception to the hearsay rule, relying on striking similarities between their statements and those of other residents.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and entered acquittals.

The majority held that under the Supreme Court's decision in Starr, corroborative evidence from other complainants regarding different events cannot be used to establish threshold reliability when the declarant is unavailable for cross-examination.

The respondents were charged with wilfully promoting hatred against the Roma people after participating in a demonstration outside a motel housing Roma refugee claimants.

The trial judge acquitted the respondents, finding the Crown failed to prove that the term 'gypsies' used in the demonstration was interchangeable with 'Roma'.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the Crown's appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and ordered new trials, holding that the trial judge erred in law by focusing solely on the interchangeability of the terms rather than considering the totality of the evidence, and that he should have taken judicial notice of dictionary definitions linking the two terms.

The Crown appealed the respondent's acquittal by a jury.

The Crown argued the trial judge erred in excluding the respondent's statement based on his right to silence, in permitting the defence to lead evidence of a statement to police regarding post-offence conduct, and in failing to give a stronger jury charge concerning the victim's hospital statement.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that even if the trial judge erred in excluding the statement, the Crown failed to show the verdict would not necessarily have been the same, as the statement had little probative value and the case ultimately depended on identification evidence.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing that the verdict was unreasonable because the events as described by the complainant were mechanically impossible and could not have occurred without her waking up earlier.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the complainant's version of events was not implausible, especially given that she had been drinking before falling asleep.

The court concluded that the trial judge's finding of sexual assault was not unreasonable.