Dr. Clive Chamberlain

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder for the killing of a police officer.

On appeal, he argued that the trial judge misdirected the jury regarding expert psychiatric evidence and that the Crown engaged in illegal jury vetting by seeking police officers' opinions on potential jurors.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the jury instructions correctly explained how to weigh expert opinions based on hearsay without shifting the burden of proof.

The Court also held that the jury vetting process did not give the Crown an unfair advantage or create an appearance of bias, as the police opinions were not drawn from databases and the Crown had no obligation to disclose them.

The applicants sought judicial review of a decision by the Director of Adoption Services to place their international adoption on hold.

The hold was initiated after the estranged sister of one of the applicants made historic sexual abuse allegations just days before the applicants were scheduled to travel to finalize the adoption.

The Director placed the hold and required a new home study without providing the applicants an opportunity to respond or detailing the allegations.

The Divisional Court granted the application, finding that the Director breached procedural fairness by failing to give the applicants a meaningful opportunity to respond.

The court also found the requirement for a further home study unreasonable given the unchallenged expert evidence refuting the risk.

The Director's decision was quashed and the original approval was reinstated.

The appellant appealed multiple sexual offence convictions arising from allegations by three young complainants, challenging the constitutionality of the anal intercourse counts, the jury charge on reasonable doubt, expert evidence on child sexual abuse disclosure patterns, the absence of a clear and sharp Vetrovec warning, and the admission of similar fact evidence.

The court quashed the three s. 159 convictions because the provision had been declared unconstitutional.

The remaining grounds failed: the charge as a whole did not create a reasonable likelihood that the jury convicted on an improper standard, the expert evidence was necessary to explain inconsistent disclosures and recantations, no mandatory strong Vetrovec warning was required, and the similar fact ruling attracted deference.

The appeal was otherwise dismissed.