The accused was charged with arson under section 434 of the Criminal Code for intentionally or recklessly causing damage by fire to a hotel property on April 21, 2016.
At the preliminary inquiry, the Crown relied almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, including security video footage and expert fire investigation testimony.
The Crown's case rested on identifying the accused in the breezeway area where the fire originated in the hours before the fire was discovered, and the fact that the accused was found in possession of a lighter.
The court found that while there was evidence the fire was intentionally or recklessly set, the Crown failed to establish a permissible inference regarding the accused's identity as the person who set the fire.
The critical gap was the timing: the accused was last identified in the breezeway at approximately 12:52 pm, but smoke was not noticed until approximately 1:25 pm—a 33-minute gap.
The expert testimony established that the fire would likely have ignited no earlier than 1:05 pm, meaning the accused could not have been the person who set it.
The court held that any inference bridging this temporal gap would constitute impermissible speculation rather than a reasonable inference based on proven facts.
