The Crown brought a mid-trial application to admit an out-of-court hearsay statement of the complainant pursuant to the principled approach to hearsay established in R. v. Khelawon.
The complainant's trial testimony was inconsistent with her earlier statement to police.
The court applied the two-part test requiring the Crown to establish both necessity and threshold reliability on a balance of probabilities.
The court found that necessity was met because the complainant's trial testimony did not support the charges, whereas her prior statement did.
The court also found threshold reliability was established through multiple indicia including the complainant's corroborating testimony in-chief regarding certain incidents, the officer's careful documentation and questioning technique, the spontaneity of the statement, the complainant's clear mental state, and her availability for cross-examination.
The application was granted and the statement was admitted for the truth of its contents.
