Monica Sloan

The defendants were charged with multiple counts of robbery, attempted robbery, conspiracy, and weapons offences related to a series of ATM robberies in Toronto.

The Crown relied on similar fact evidence, including distinctive clothing worn by the perpetrators, to link the defendants to the earlier robberies after they were arrested during an attempted ATM robbery.

The court applied the W.(D.) test to assess the defendants' testimony and the Villaroman test for circumstantial evidence.

The court rejected the defendants' explanations, found the circumstantial evidence of identity compelling, and convicted both defendants on all remaining counts.

The accused was tried for the second-degree murder of his wife, whose body was found near a gas tank on their property.

The Crown's case was entirely circumstantial, relying on motive, opportunity, and post-offence conduct, including the accused's destruction of his wife's poetry.

The defence argued the victim may have interrupted a gas theft or been killed by an alternate suspect with whom she was having an affair.

The court found the investigation had tunnel vision and failed to adequately explore other possibilities.

Concluding that the accused's guilt was not the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence, the court found the accused not guilty.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder after his estranged girlfriend disappeared and her dismembered remains were found two years later.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of an unsavoury witness who helped dispose of the body, corroborated by circumstantial and forensic evidence.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in his jury instructions, in admitting hearsay and after-the-fact demeanour evidence, and in allowing bad character evidence regarding a subsequent relationship.

The Court of Appeal found that while some bad character evidence was improperly admitted and misused by the Crown, the curative proviso applied because the remaining evidence of guilt was overwhelming.

The appeal was dismissed.