During a trial for child pornography offences, the accused brought a mistrial application after the Crown introduced an unannounced in-court demonstration by a police technical analyst to rebut evidence elicited during the cross-examination of the Crown's computer forensics expert.
The accused argued the analyst gave unqualified expert evidence and the demonstration constituted trial by ambush.
The court held that the analyst's testimony was factual, not expert opinion, but ruled the demonstration inadmissible due to the lack of prior disclosure.
The mistrial application was dismissed, with the court finding that excluding the demonstration and allowing the defence to recall witnesses or call their own expert was a sufficient remedy.
