On a pre-trial motion in a robbery prosecution, the Crown sought to tender police expert evidence interpreting a single slang word in text messages sent before the alleged offence.
The court held the proposed witness was properly qualified to give expert evidence on urban street language and coded words.
Applying the Mohan admissibility framework and the second-stage balancing described in Abbey and Boswell, the court found the opinion rested on very limited context and carried meagre probative value.
Because the probative value did not outweigh the potential prejudice, the proposed expert evidence was excluded.
