Jasmine Mann

Sentencing for a guilty plea to robbery arising from a planned, violent takeover robbery of a cash business in which masked co-participants used a handgun, forcibly confined employees, and stole over $1 million, while the offender acted as the decoy driver.

The court treated the guilty plea, youth, family support, and some rehabilitative prospects as mitigating, but emphasized planning, anticipated violence, the scale of the theft, and the terror inflicted on the victims.

Applying the totality principle, the court imposed a 21-month sentence consecutive to an existing sentence for a later home invasion robbery.

The court refused to grant Downes credit for restrictive bail conditions because the offender committed a serious new robbery while on house arrest bail.

The offender was convicted of two counts of sexual assault against an intimate partner, a transgender refugee claimant.

The assaults included digital penetration and unwanted touching.

The Crown sought a 22-month custodial sentence, while the defence sought a conditional sentence order.

The court weighed the serious aggravating factors of intimate partner violence and victim vulnerability against the offender's youth, mental health challenges, and significant rehabilitative efforts.

The court imposed a 24-month conditional sentence order, finding that incarceration would have severe collateral consequences on the offender's mental health and stability.

Sentencing for child luring arising from a prolonged undercover internet exploitation investigation in which the offender believed he was communicating with a 13-year-old child, sent sexually explicit messages and images, and arranged an in-person meeting.

The defence sought a conditional sentence based on exceptional personal circumstances, psychological evidence, rehabilitation, low risk of reoffending, and severe collateral consequences.

The court held that denunciation and deterrence remained primary for child sexual offences and that conditional sentences will only rarely be appropriate in exceptional circumstances rendering incarceration inappropriate.

While accepting substantial mitigating evidence and imposing a sentence below the usual range, the court concluded that a custodial sentence was legally required and imposed 15 months' reformatory time.

The accused was charged with two counts of sexual assault against a refugee claimant with whom she was in an intimate relationship while both resided at a shelter in Toronto.

The Crown alleged two separate incidents of sexual assault in April 2022.

The accused denied the first incident and characterized the second as a consensual joke.

The court found the complainant to be a credible and reliable witness, applying a trauma-informed approach to assess inconsistencies in their testimony.

The court rejected the accused's reliance on "implied consent" as a defence and found the touching to be sexual in nature.

The accused was convicted on both counts.

The court sentenced Neng Jia Jin for the first degree murder of Vanessa Kurpiewska and the attempted murder of Sulakshana Srijeyarah, both committed on December 8, 2022, on Toronto public transit.

Jin pleaded guilty, avoiding a lengthy trial.

The mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 25 years was imposed for murder, and 20 years’ imprisonment (concurrent) for attempted murder.

The court reviewed the facts, victim impact, aggravating and mitigating factors, and relevant sentencing principles, emphasizing the gravity of the offences, the profound impact on victims and the community, and the need for denunciation and deterrence.

E.R., a young person, pleaded guilty to robbery stemming from a home invasion.

The court considered the appropriate sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), including whether a custodial disposition was warranted.

The Crown sought a custody and supervision order or, alternatively, a deferred custody and supervision order.

The defence sought a two-year probation period.

The court determined that while the offence was violent and caused serious psychological harm to the victims, a deferred custody order was not available due to the intended serious bodily harm.

However, considering E.R.'s significant rehabilitative steps, lack of prior record, and low risk of re-offending, the court found that a custodial sentence was not warranted.

A two-year probation period with various conditions was imposed, along with a weapons prohibition and a DNA order.

The defendant, Ephraim Mohlala, was charged with sexual assault.

The central issue at trial was the credibility and reliability of the complainant and the defendant.

The court applied the principles from R. v. W.(D.) and found the complainant generally truthful but with several reliability concerns and one credibility concern, particularly regarding inconsistencies and omissions in her statements about the incident, alcohol consumption, and injuries.

While the court did not entirely believe the defendant's denial of sexual contact, it found that the inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, coupled with the burden of proof on the prosecution, left the court in a state of reasonable doubt.

Consequently, the defendant was acquitted.

Three youthful first offenders, aged 18 and 19, pleaded guilty to possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking.

The court considered the severe impact of fentanyl in the community alongside the offenders' youth, prospects for rehabilitation, and social context evidence.

The court heavily criticized the overly restrictive bail conditions imposed on the offenders, granting them 18 months of credit.

Ultimately, the court sentenced the offenders to 3 years, 2 years, and 3 years in custody, emphasizing restraint in sentencing youthful offenders while acknowledging the objective gravity of wholesale fentanyl trafficking.

The appellant brought an interlocutory motion seeking an order compelling the respondent to produce a further list of documents under Rule 82 of the Tax Court of Canada Rules (General Procedure).

The appellant sought documentation related to CRA audits of scrap gold suppliers, Integras cases, and Collections diaries relevant to alleged GST/HST carousel schemes.

The Tax Court of Canada granted the motion, finding that the requested documents met the low threshold for relevance on discovery and rejecting the respondent's proportionality arguments.