Brady Donohue

The accused, charged with sexual assault, brought pre-trial applications under ss. 276 and 278.92 of the Criminal Code to admit text messages and a 31-second video recording of the alleged incident.

The text messages detailed a transactional agreement for sex negotiated on a dating app.

The court found the text messages and video recording had significant probative value regarding the issue of consent that outweighed the danger of prejudice to the proper administration of justice.

The applications were granted, and the evidence was ruled admissible at trial subject to specific conditions to protect the complainant's privacy.

The accused pleaded guilty to second degree murder for stabbing his intimate partner to death.

The Crown sought a parole ineligibility period of 16 to 17 years, while the accused sought the minimum 10 years.

The court considered the brutal nature of the killing, the breach of trust, and the aggravating factor of intimate partner violence, balanced against the mitigating factors of a guilty plea, lack of prior record, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 15 years.

In a first-degree murder trial involving a domestic homicide, the Crown sought to introduce various out-of-court statements and text messages.

The court ruled on the admissibility of this evidence, applying the Barton framework for prior sexual conduct and the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The court admitted text messages arranging a sexual encounter as evidence of the accused's motive, but excluded them as evidence of the deceased's state of mind.

The court also admitted several of the accused's prior statements as admissions, while excluding certain hearsay statements made by the deceased to her estranged husband for lack of threshold reliability.

The accused was charged with the attempted murder of his spouse and assault with a weapon against another individual.

The court acquitted the accused of the assault with a weapon charge due to the unreliability of the complainant's evidence.

On the attempted murder charge, security video captured the accused brutally beating his unconscious spouse, causing life-threatening injuries.

The court found the specific intent to kill was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but convicted the accused of the included offence of aggravated assault, rejecting the defence of necessity.

Following a judge-alone criminal trial, the court convicted the defendant of sexual assault with another person, choking to enable sexual assault, forcible confinement, uttering death threats, and assault arising from multiple assaults in the complainant's apartment over several hours.

Applying the W.(D.) framework, the court rejected the defendant's evidence of consensual intercourse and accepted the complainant's evidence despite some sequencing errors and omissions in her police statement.

The court relied on corroborative circumstantial evidence including the state of the bedroom, surveillance footage of an attempted escape and locked apartment door, injuries, prayer-related clothing, and DNA evidence linking both men to genital and anal swabs.

The publication ban protecting the complainant's identity remains in force.

The accused was charged with aggravated assault after stabbing the victim with a knife during an altercation at a mutual romantic partner's apartment.

The sole issue at trial was whether the accused acted in self-defence under section 34 of the Criminal Code.

The court rejected the accused's evidence, finding she advanced on the unarmed victim and stabbed her out of anger when she was not in any danger and could have easily left the apartment.

The Crown successfully negatived all three branches of self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt, resulting in a finding of guilt.

The accused struck a person riding a push scooter with his motor vehicle, causing bodily harm.

He was charged with impaired driving causing bodily harm and driving 'over 80' causing bodily harm.

The accused brought Charter applications alleging breaches of his rights under ss. 8, 10(a), and 10(b) due to alleged delays in taking breath samples and a failure to advise him of the potential for more serious charges.

The court dismissed the Charter applications, finding no breaches and concluding that the evidence would not be excluded under s. 24(2) regardless.

The court found the accused guilty on both counts, as the Crown proved impairment, blood alcohol concentration over 80, and causation beyond a reasonable doubt.