Eric N. Libman

This decision involves the sentencing and long-term supervision order (LTSO) application for Gregory Lock, a repeat offender with a decades-long history of sexual offences against children, including possession and accessing of child pornography.

Despite a prior 10-year LTSO imposed in 2012, Mr. Lock repeatedly breached the order by possessing prohibited materials and devices, culminating in new convictions.

The Court imposed a new 10-year LTSO and a total effective sentence of 12 years imprisonment, with credit for pre-trial custody reducing the penitentiary term to 5.5 years.

The ruling emphasizes the serious nature of child pornography offences, the offender’s high risk of recidivism, and the necessity of denunciatory and deterrent sentences to protect the public, especially children.

Ancillary orders including DNA, weapons prohibition, SOIRA registration, and section 161 prohibitions were also imposed.

The Ontario Court of Justice sentenced Christopher Green to 2 years' imprisonment followed by a 10-year long-term supervision order after he pleaded guilty to multiple child pornography offences and breaches of court orders.

The Crown sought an 8-year sentence plus ancillary orders including lifetime prohibitions under ss. 109, 161, DNA, and SOIRA.

The defence argued for time served with enhanced pre-trial credit and opposed the long-term supervision order.

The court found that Green's repeated offending, despite prior sentences and supervision, demonstrated a substantial risk of reoffending, driven by an underlying sexual preference for adolescent males and substance abuse issues.

The court applied the principles from R v Friesen and R v Pike to impose a denunciatory sentence reflecting the gravity of the offences and the harm to victims.

Enhanced pre-trial custody credit was granted due to harsh detention conditions.

The long-term supervision order was imposed for the maximum 10 years to ensure structured supervision and risk management in the community.

The Crown applied for an assessment under s.752.1 of the Criminal Code to determine if the accused, who pleaded guilty to possessing and accessing child pornography, should be declared a dangerous or long-term offender.

The central issue was whether these offences qualified as "serious personal injury offences" under s.752, a prerequisite for such an assessment.

The court, distinguishing from previous cases like Patterson based on the quantity and nature of the child pornography, the accused's repeat offender status, and compelling victim impact evidence, found that the offences did meet the definition of serious personal injury offences.

Consequently, the court ordered the assessment.

The defendant brought a Charter motion to stay proceedings or exclude evidence, alleging excessive force by police (ss. 7, 12) and violations of his rights to be informed of charges and to counsel (ss. 10(a), 10(b)).

The court found that the police use of force, including pepper spray, was reasonable and proportionate given the defendant's non-compliance and aggressive resistance.

The court also found that the defendant was informed of the reasons for his arrest in a timely manner and that any delay in advising him of his right to counsel was justified by the dynamic and volatile situation, and that he ultimately exercised his right to counsel.

The motion for Charter relief was dismissed.

The accused was arrested for impaired driving following a motor vehicle accident on Highway 401.

At the police station, during the booking process, a police officer directed the accused to remove the drawstring from his pants as a safety concern.

When the drawstring could not be removed without damaging the pants, the accused's pants were removed, leaving him in his undergarments.

The accused remained in this state of undress throughout his time at the police station, including during the breath testing procedure, where he subsequently refused to provide a breath sample.

The court found that the removal of the accused's pants constituted an illegal strip search conducted without reasonable and probable grounds, in a public area, in the presence of multiple officers, and while being videotaped.

The court granted a stay of proceedings as the appropriate remedy, finding that proceeding with the trial would be harmful to the integrity of the justice system.

The defendant was charged with three counts of dangerous driving and three counts of failing to remain at the scene of an accident arising from a motor vehicle collision between a tractor trailer and a group of motorcyclists on Highway 401.

The court ruled on the admissibility of the defendant's statements given at the accident scene as a pre-trial motion.

The defendant argued that his statements were statutorily compelled under section 199 of the Highway Traffic Act and therefore inadmissible in criminal proceedings.

The Crown argued that the defendant was merely a witness to the accident, not involved in it, and that his statements were motivated by self-interest rather than statutory compulsion.

The court found that the defendant was "directly or indirectly involved" in the accident, honestly and reasonably believed he was required to report it, was not motivated by self-interest, and reported the accident within the "forthwith" requirement.

Accordingly, the defendant's statements were excluded from evidence as statutorily compelled statements protected by the Charter.

The applicant challenged a police search of the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) driver licence database under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The police used facial recognition technology to search the database and identify the applicant as the holder of multiple fraudulently obtained driver's licences.

The applicant argued that the search violated his reasonable expectation of privacy in his photograph and personal information submitted for driver's licence purposes.

The Crown argued that no reasonable expectation of privacy exists in information voluntarily submitted to obtain a driver's licence, which is a regulated privilege.

The court dismissed the applicant's challenge, finding that driver's licence applicants have neither a subjective nor an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the information contained in the MTO database.

The accused was charged with 26 offences related to fraudulently obtaining and possessing multiple driver's licences under various aliases.

The Crown's case relied primarily on photo-comparison technology and visual identification from driver's licence photographs and booking hall videotapes to establish that the accused was the same person responsible for obtaining licences under seven different names.

The court found that the identification evidence was insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as no police officer who had investigated or dealt with the accused in connection with prior incidents was able to identify him as the person they had encountered.

The court acquitted the accused of all charges, finding that relying solely on the judge's own visual comparison of photographs and videotapes, without corroborating eyewitness identification, would be manifestly unsafe given the inherent frailties of identification evidence.

The accused was charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy at the YMCA.

The defence sought production of third-party incident reports held by the YMCA documenting other alleged misconduct by the complainant with other men at the facility.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the defence failed to meet the "likely relevance" threshold under section 278.3 of the Criminal Code.

The court determined that the records were sought as part of a speculative fishing expedition to portray the complainant as the initiator of sexual activity, relying on impermissible stereotypes and myths about sexual assault victims.

The accused brought an application to stay proceedings for unreasonable delay under section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Crown charged the accused with possession of cocaine, possession for the purpose of trafficking cocaine, and possession of proceeds of crime following a search warrant execution on October 3, 2016.

The case proceeded through multiple adjournments and judicial pre-trials, with significant delays in Crown disclosure.

The accused initially faced a discovery preliminary hearing scheduled for November 2017 but later elected trial in the Ontario Court of Justice in September 2017.

The court found that the applicable Jordan presumptive ceiling was 18 months (not 30 months as the Crown argued), and that the total delay of 18 months and 24 days, minus 44 days of defence delay, resulted in net delay of approximately 17.5 months, narrowly avoiding the presumptive ceiling.

The application to stay was dismissed, though the court criticized the Crown's disclosure practices as unacceptable and cavalier.

A provincial offences appeal concerning the destruction of a boundary tree without the consent of the co-owner.

The appellant, a homeowner, obtained a municipal permit to remove a Norway maple tree on the property line between his residence and his neighbors' property, claiming it was hazardous.

He removed the tree without obtaining the neighbors' consent.

The trial justice found him guilty of violating section 10(3) of the Forestry Act.

On appeal, the appellant argued that the Forestry Act did not apply to joint owners of boundary trees and that he had a self-help remedy to abate a nuisance.

The appellate court upheld the conviction, finding that the appellant's conduct was manifestly unreasonable, particularly given the three-and-a-half-year delay between obtaining the permit and removing the tree, and his failure to seek consent or court authorization.

The Crown sought to adduce similar act evidence based on video surveillance footage showing the defendant standing in close proximity to two unknown women in a grocery store, allegedly engaging in conduct similar to the charged sexual assault of the complainant.

The defendant was charged with sexually assaulting a woman at a checkout counter by touching her buttocks three times in a deliberate manner.

The Crown argued that two other incidents captured on video—one occurring minutes before and one after the alleged assault—demonstrated a pattern of similar groping conduct.

The defence opposed admission, arguing the evidence was insufficiently similar and that the video footage was ambiguous and incapable of proving the alleged similar acts.

The court dismissed the Crown's application, finding that neither incident shown on video demonstrated striking similarity to the charged conduct and that the evidence was not capable of proving the alleged similar acts to the requisite degree of certainty.

The Crown appealed a sentencing decision imposing a $10,000 fine on a defendant convicted of dealing in mortgages without a licence under the Mortgage Brokerages, Lenders and Administrators Act, 2006.

The defendant, a former licensed mortgage broker whose licence had been revoked, continued to conduct mortgage brokering activities through a separate company while unlicensed, generating $48,967.20 in commissions over 14 transactions.

The Crown sought a fine of $100,000 at trial and $75,000 on appeal, arguing the sentence failed to give appropriate weight to general deterrence.

The appellate court dismissed the Crown's appeal, finding the trial judge properly considered deterrence and other relevant sentencing principles, and that the $10,000 fine was fit and appropriate given the circumstances of the offender and the nature of the strict liability offence.

The court ruled on the status of Paul Hatzitrifonos, a non-lawyer and non-paralegal practitioner, to argue provincial offences trials and appeals as an agent for counsel Altaf Khan.

The court determined that permitting such representation is contrary to the proper administration of justice and impedes access to justice.

The court found that Hatzitrifonos, lacking formal legal training, licensing, and professional regulation, cannot provide competent legal services or be properly supervised by counsel.

The court emphasized that representatives in provincial offences proceedings must be authorized under the Law Society Act and subject to professional standards and continuing education requirements.

The Crown brought a dangerous offender application against Roberto Camara following his conviction for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

The victim, a 72-year-old man, was struck in the face with a pool cue at a sports bar, resulting in permanent blindness in one eye and permanent facial disfigurement.

The court found that Camara met the statutory criteria for dangerous offender designation under both s.753(1)(a)(i) and s.753(1)(a)(ii) of the Criminal Code based on a pattern of repetitive and persistent aggressive behaviour showing a failure to restrain his behaviour and substantial indifference to the consequences.

The court rejected the alternative long-term offender designation, finding no reasonable possibility of eventual control of the risk in the community.

Camara was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced to an indeterminate sentence.