John Bongard Hanna

During a criminal trial involving allegations that the accused pointed a firearm and uttered threats at a children's birthday party, the Crown sought to admit prior inconsistent statements made by four witnesses as substantive evidence under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The witnesses recanted their earlier police statements at trial and denied seeing a firearm.

The court considered whether the prior statements met the necessity and threshold reliability requirements under the principled approach to hearsay.

Finding that the witnesses were available for cross-examination, that accurate records of their statements existed, and that the surrounding circumstances provided sufficient indicia of reliability, the court admitted the prior statements for the truth of their contents.

The court also admitted certain spontaneous utterances made during the incident under the res gestae exception to the hearsay rule.

During a jury trial for alleged sexual assault against a child, the Crown sought to play a 911 call recording during re‑examination of a witness after the defence advanced a theory that the witness fabricated the allegation.

The Crown argued the recording demonstrated the witness’s emotional state immediately after the alleged fabrication and constituted a prior consistent statement rebutting the defence theory.

The court held that while limited re‑examination was permissible to address allegations of recent fabrication, the scope of re‑examination must remain confined to clarifying or explaining matters raised in cross‑examination.

The judge ruled that playing the 911 recording would be highly prejudicial due to its intense emotional content and repeated accusations, and its probative value was limited.

The Crown was instead permitted to ask questions about the call and rely on police event report records, but the recording itself was excluded.