Jeremy D. Tatum

The appellant appealed his convictions for threatening death, criminal harassment, and mischief, as well as his suspended sentence and 12 months' probation.

The convictions arose from an incident where the appellant, after receiving a noise complaint, banged on neighbors' doors and threatened to kill them.

The appellant argued the trial judge misapprehended evidence, specifically an iPhone recording that did not capture threats.

The appeal court found no palpable and overriding error, concluding the trial judge's findings were reasonable.

The conviction appeal was dismissed, though a conditional stay was entered for the criminal harassment charges under the Kienapple principle.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, with a modification to the weapons prohibition from s. 109 to s. 110 of the Criminal Code.

The self-represented appellant appealed his summary conviction for simple assault against his former spouse.

He argued the trial judge erred in applying the W.(D.) test and subjected his evidence to a more stringent standard of scrutiny than the complainant's.

The Summary Conviction Appeal Court dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's credibility assessments and concluding the verdict was not unreasonable or unsupported by the evidence.

During a criminal trial for historical sexual offences, the accused sought to question character witnesses about whether he had a disposition to commit sexual assault or acts of violence.

The Crown objected, arguing that character evidence from lay witnesses must be limited to evidence of general reputation rather than personal opinions about specific traits or conduct.

The court held that questions about sexual morality or peaceful disposition would elicit impermissible opinion evidence and had minimal probative value in the context of private historical allegations involving a child.

Relying on appellate jurisprudence regarding the limited value of such evidence in sexual offence cases, the judge concluded that the prejudicial effects and trial inefficiency outweighed any probative value.

The proposed questioning was therefore disallowed.

The accused, charged with historical indecent assaults from the 1970s, brought a motion to introduce evidence of an alternate suspect.

The accused sought to introduce evidence that his daughters were sexually assaulted by their cousin during the same time period and in the same locations.

The court applied the air of reality test and found that the proposed evidence was sufficiently connected to the charges to be relevant and probative.

The court concluded that the probative value of the alternate suspect evidence outweighed any prejudicial effect, and the application was granted.

The plaintiff successfully sued the defendant for defamation and obtained an injunction prohibiting the defendant from communicating about him.

The defendant breached the injunction by communicating with a Member of Parliament, claiming it was an act of conscience, and was found in civil contempt.

The court sentenced the defendant to a 90-day conditional sentence with house arrest, followed by 18 months' probation and 200 hours of community service, finding that jail was not necessary.

The defendant was also ordered to pay substantial indemnity costs of $24,377.41.