P. Kott

In a criminal trial involving charges related to sexual services, the defence requested several specific jury instructions during a pre-charge conference.

The trial judge declined to give a Vetrovec warning, finding the complainant was not an inherently unreliable witness.

The judge also refused to instruct the jury on the material benefit exception under s. 286.2(4) of the Criminal Code, as the evidence did not support its application.

The judge agreed to provide a specific instruction regarding the frailty of text message evidence due to the complainant's admission of deleting texts.

Finally, the judge ruled that 'control, direction, or influence over the movements of a person' under s. 286.3(1) includes non-physical movements such as setting prices for sexual services.

During a trial involving allegations of selling sexual services, the Crown sought to introduce the accused's hotel registration cards as business records.

The Crown conceded it failed to meet the notice requirements under s. 30 of the Canada Evidence Act but argued the records were admissible under the common law exception to the hearsay rule.

The court found the records met the common law requirements for reliability and necessity.

However, the court excluded the accused's records because the Crown had explicitly stated in its pre-trial conference form that it would not rely on hearsay or its exceptions, and had never amended the form.

In a pre-trial motion, the Crown sought to admit the accused's police statement as voluntary, while the accused sought its exclusion under s. 24(2) of the Charter, alleging breaches of his s. 10(a) and 10(b) rights.

The accused was arrested for uttering threats in front of his family but was not advised of his right to counsel or the additional procuring charges until 11 minutes later in a separate room.

The court found the statement was voluntary and that the accused had an operating mind.

Although the court found breaches of s. 10(a) and 10(b) due to the 11-minute delay, it declined to exclude the statement under s. 24(2), concluding the breach was minor and society's interest in adjudicating the serious charges on their merits outweighed the impact of the breach.

On a pre-trial Charter application, the accused sought exclusion of hotel registration records obtained by police directly from hotel staff without prior judicial authorization.

Applying the reasonable expectation of privacy analysis for third-party records, the court held that hotel registration information such as name, address, telephone number, payment details, and vehicle information did not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy in the circumstances.

The court preferred appellate authority declining to extend s. 8 protection to this type of commercial transaction record and rejected the argument that the records indirectly revealed intimate lifestyle choices.

The application was dismissed.

The court added that, even if a breach had been established, exclusion under s. 24(2) would not have been warranted.

The accused, charged with sexual services offences including procuring, sought to cross-examine the complainant about her prior and subsequent involvement in the sex trade.

The Crown objected, arguing the accused must comply with the procedures in s. 276 of the Criminal Code or analogous common law rules established in Seaboyer.

The court declined to follow a recent coordinate decision that extended Seaboyer to sexual services offences, holding that such an extension would exceed the bounds of incremental common law change and circumvent Parliament's deliberate choice not to include these offences in s. 276.

The court concluded that existing rules of evidence are sufficient to protect the trial process from irrelevant and prejudicial evidence.