Dr. Eccles

On competing family law motions concerning child access, relocation, grandparent contact, and proposed reunification therapy, the court found that the child's serious illness and the family's relocation to southwestern Ontario constituted a material change in circumstances.

The court declined to terminate the father's supervised access or the grandparents' access, granted the mother's request to relocate, and granted the father's request to amend his pleadings to seek custody.

Limited supervised in-person access in the London area was ordered together with telephone and written contact, while the therapy request was dismissed without prejudice because the evidentiary record lacked necessary particulars.

Costs were awarded primarily to the moving party for the earlier successful attendance, with no costs order as between the main parties for the later hearing.

The Crown appealed a sentence imposed following guilty pleas to incest, sexual assault, sexual interference, making and possessing child pornography, and a firearms storage offence arising from prolonged sexual abuse of the offender's child.

The main issue was whether the sentencing judge erred by refusing to view a disc containing child pornography and recordings of the abuse, and whether the resulting six-year global sentence was unfit.

The majority held that a sentencing judge may exclude otherwise relevant evidence where its prejudicial effect outweighs its probative value and found no reversible error in the refusal to view the disc in the unusual circumstances.

The majority further held that, although lenient, the six-year global sentence was not clearly inadequate and dismissed the Crown appeal; a dissenting judge would have increased the sentence to nine years.

The appellant appealed his dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence, arguing he should have been designated a long-term offender.

He also sought to adduce fresh evidence regarding his post-sentence treatment.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge correctly interpreted s. 753.1(1)(c) of the Criminal Code as requiring a reasonable possibility that the risk posed by the offender will be controlled within the duration of the long-term sentence.

Given the appellant's pedophilia, cognitive limitations, and need for life-long pharmacological treatment, the trial judge did not err in concluding this criterion was not met.

The fresh evidence was not admitted as it would not have affected the result.