R. Scott

Areeb-Ud-Din Zain pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including three counts of discharging a prohibited firearm with intent to endanger life, unauthorized possession of a non-restricted firearm, flight from police, and possession of cocaine.

The charges stemmed from an incident where Zain fired at three police officers after being stopped for running a red light.

Despite his efforts, no officers were injured.

The court considered aggravating factors, such as the deliberate shooting at police officers, the number of shots fired, the public location, and his criminal record, including prior flight from police.

Mitigating factors included his guilty plea (though not early), his relative youth, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The court accepted a joint submission for a total sentence of eight and a half years, less pre-sentence custody, emphasizing denunciation, deterrence, and public protection.

Mr. Khan was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and assault with a weapon after stabbing his wife.

The Crown conceded acquittal on attempted murder.

The central issue was whether Mr. Khan was not criminally responsible (NCR) due to a disease of the mind, specifically delirium tremens, at the time of the offences.

The court, accepting expert psychiatric evidence and applying the holistic approach from R. v. Stone and R. v. Bouchard-Lebrun, found that delirium tremens constituted a disease of the mind in this case.

It concluded that Mr. Khan was unable to understand the moral wrongfulness of his acts and was therefore NCR for aggravated assault, with a conditional stay for assault with a weapon.

The accused applied for a stay of proceedings under s. 24(1) of the Charter, alleging he was assaulted by police detectives after his arrest for armed robbery.

The accused claimed the officers beat him in an unmonitored interview room to extract a confession, washed his blood-stained shirt to conceal the assault, and deliberately conducted his videotaped interview with his back to the camera.

The court found the accused's evidence credible and concluded that the officers had indeed assaulted him and attempted to cover it up.

The court held that the police misconduct was so offensive to societal notions of fair play and decency that it fell into the residual category of abuse of process.

The application was granted and the proceedings were stayed.

The offender was convicted of sexual assault following a two-day trial.

The assault involved digital penetration of the victim while she was asleep, without consent.

The offender and victim had a long-standing platonic friendship spanning over 13 years.

The Crown sought a nine-month jail sentence followed by probation, while the defence sought a conditional sentence.

The court imposed a 12-month conditional sentence with strict conditions including six months of house arrest with electronic monitoring, followed by a curfew, 150 hours of community service, counselling, and a two-year probation order.

A 10-year SOIRA order and DNA order were also imposed.

The accused pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of a two-year-old child who was left in a hot vehicle at an unlicensed daycare facility.

The accused operated an illegal daycare with 35 children, seven times the legal capacity, despite a prior warning from the Ministry of Education.

The child died of hyperthermia after being forgotten in the vehicle for several hours.

The accused misrepresented the cause of death to emergency responders and parents, and evidence was subsequently destroyed.

The court imposed a custodial sentence of 22 months followed by three years probation with strict conditions.

At a preliminary hearing into the death of a two-year-old child at a day care, the Crown sought to admit two statements from a witness without calling her to testify in person, citing her medical inability to attend court.

The defence opposed admission and sought an order requiring the witness to attend for cross-examination.

The court admitted both statements under section 540(7) of the Criminal Code, finding them credible and trustworthy, but declined to order the witness's attendance under section 540(9), balancing the accused's interest in cross-examination against the witness's medical circumstances and the ancillary nature of the evidence to the charges.

The defendant was convicted after a six-day trial of sexual assault and sexual interference with a child under fourteen years of age.

The abuse occurred over approximately three and one-half years, beginning when the defendant was fifteen years old and the victim was ten years old.

The defendant engaged in over one hundred meetings with the victim, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and fondling.

The Crown sought a three-year federal penitentiary sentence, while the defence sought five to eight months in provincial custody.

The court imposed a sentence of two years less two days in provincial custody, considering the defendant's youth at the time the abuse commenced, his lack of remorse, the severity of the victim's suffering, and his good prospects for rehabilitation.

The accused was charged with sexual assault following an incident on September 7, 2014.

The complainant and accused were friends of approximately 12 years with a purely platonic relationship.

While watching television at the complainant's newly purchased home, the complainant fell asleep on a loveseat while the accused was massaging her feet and legs.

The complainant awoke to find the accused's fingers inserted into her vagina without her consent.

The accused immediately told him to leave.

The court found that the accused sexually assaulted the complainant by inserting his fingers into her vagina while she was asleep and therefore incapable of consenting.

The accused's own admissions in his text message, statements to police upon arrest, and video-recorded police statement were determinative of guilt.

The defendant was charged with sexual assault and interference of a young girl between September 13, 2005 and June 30, 2006.

The complainant testified that she engaged in a prolonged sexual relationship with the defendant, who was approximately five years older, beginning when she was approximately 10 years old.

The defendant denied all allegations, claiming he barely knew the complainant and only saw her occasionally on the street.

The trial judge found the complainant's evidence credible and corroborated by several key details, including her knowledge of the defendant's basement layout, the ring with inscription given by his girlfriend, and the nature of a telephone conversation between them in 2012.

The defendant was found guilty on all charges.

A young person convicted of first‑degree murder for causing the death of a police officer while fleeing a traffic stop was sentenced under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The accused, who was 15 at the time of the offence, survived the crash but was rendered a quadriplegic with profound lifelong medical needs.

The Crown sought the maximum youth sentence of 10 years with five years of open custody followed by four years of community supervision.

The court found the offender’s catastrophic disability, lack of prior record, demonstrated remorse, and low risk to reoffend constituted exceptional circumstances.

The judge concluded that incarceration would not meaningfully enhance accountability and that the correctional system had not demonstrated an ability to meet the offender’s extensive medical needs.

A one‑day custody component with credit for pre‑trial custody and a nine‑year conditional supervision order was imposed.

The defendant was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference against a minor complainant.

The Crown alleged that the defendant sexually assaulted the complainant in his parents' apartment between February 10, 2010 and March 7, 2010, when she was 15 years old.

The defendant denied all allegations.

The court found the complainant's testimony riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies with her police statement, and implausible elements.

Notably, the complainant and her mother continued to interact cordially with the defendant after the alleged assault, including sending him a get-well card following his knee surgery.

The court found the defendant not guilty of all charges, determining that the Crown failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The accused was charged with residential break and enter and possession of stolen property.

The Crown proceeded by indictment and the accused elected trial in Ontario Court of Justice.

The trial proceeded over three days.

The Crown called five witnesses and the defence called one witness (the accused's mother).

The court found the accused guilty of break and enter based on circumstantial evidence including his presence near the property at the time of the offence, possession of tools consistent with break and enter, and possession of stolen items identified by the victim.

The court found the accused not guilty of possession of stolen property as the Crown failed to provide evidence regarding the stolen cell phones particularized in the information.

The accused was charged with impaired driving and driving with excess alcohol following a RIDE program stop on Highway 404.

The Crown alleged the accused attempted to back up the ramp to avoid the checkpoint.

The court found the officer had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest based on observations of impairment including odour of alcohol, bloodshot eyes, red face, swaying gait, and admission of consuming four drinks.

However, the court acquitted on the impaired driving charge due to reasonable doubt regarding the degree of impairment, finding the breath test evidence admissible but the impairment charge not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Crown brought pre-trial motions to admit hearsay statements made by the deceased to her daughter, and a statement made by the accused to police following his arrest for murder.

The court admitted the deceased's statements under the state of mind and principled exceptions to the hearsay rule, finding they were relevant to her fear of the accused and desire to separate, and possessed sufficient indicia of reliability.

The court also admitted the accused's statement to police; although the officer breached the accused's s. 10(b) Charter right to counsel by questioning him prematurely, the court found the subsequent spontaneous utterance was not tainted by the breach.