Dr. P. Valliant

The accused pleaded guilty to making available child pornography contrary to s. 163.1(3) of the Criminal Code.

During the sentencing hearing, the defence sought to qualify a forensic clinical psychologist, Dr. P. Valliant, as an expert witness to provide opinion evidence on the accused's psychological assessment and risk to re-offend.

The Crown objected, citing concerns about potential Charter arguments and the timing of the expert evidence.

The court conducted a voir dire to determine the expert's qualification.

The judge ruled that Dr. Valliant satisfied the requirements for expert qualification and was admissible to provide opinion evidence on psychological assessment and risk assessment in the sentencing context.

This is a motion brought by the father in a child protection status review proceeding seeking an interim variation of an access order made by Gregson J. on November 1, 2012.

The father sought immediate, increased, unsupervised access to his two children, including weekend access.

The court found that significant changes in circumstances had occurred since the original order, including the father's completion of anger management and counselling programs, separation from his former partner, improved communication with child protection authorities, and consistent, incident-free exercise of existing access.

The court granted the motion in part, expanding paternal access from three hours bi-weekly at a supervised access centre to daytime access in the community with progressive increases in duration, while maintaining some supervision at the society's discretion and prohibiting overnight access without society approval.