Brian Rogers

Media organizations applied to vary a publication ban in a second degree murder prosecution involving the death of a child.

The Crown and defence sought to maintain broader anonymity for the accused, the deceased, and family members, while the applicants proposed a narrower ban limited to the surviving siblings.

Applying the Dagenais-Mentuck framework, the court held the evidentiary record did not establish that a broader ban was necessary to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice.

The ban was varied to prohibit only publication of the names of the surviving children.

The respondents sought substantial indemnity costs of $18,939.18 from the media coalition regarding its motion to intervene on the appeal.

The media coalition had been granted leave to intervene on conditions, including paying costs incurred due to late intervention, but subsequently elected not to participate in the appeal to avoid costs exposure.

The Court of Appeal held that because the intervener did not participate, there was no relevant costs order on the appeal to trigger the payment of full motion costs.

However, the court awarded the respondents $3,500 for costs fairly attributable to the late intervention.