The applicant, Robin Badwah, sought an order to sever five counts of robbery into three separate trials, arguing that a single trial would be highly prejudicial due to the risk of impermissible propensity reasoning by the jury and weak identity evidence on some counts.
The court dismissed the motion, finding a strong legal and factual nexus between the counts, that potential prejudice could be mitigated by appropriate jury instructions, and that severance would lead to an inefficient use of judicial resources and potential violations of the accused's Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time.
