Leanna Seetahal

The offender was found guilty of assault, uttering a threat to cause bodily harm, and sexual assault causing bodily harm against his wife.

The Crown sought a sentence of 4 years and 4 months, while the defence sought a two-year conditional sentence.

The court considered the aggravating factors of intimate partner violence and the mitigating factors of the offender's lack of a criminal record, employment history, and the collateral immigration consequences.

The court sentenced the offender to a total of 3 years imprisonment.

The accused was charged with sexual assault, assault, and mischief following an incident on July 8, 2017.

The Crown alleged that the accused struck, choked, and forced his wife to have non-consensual sexual intercourse with him after they returned home from a night out.

The accused denied the allegations, claiming the sexual activity was consensual.

The trial judge applied the W.(D.) test and rejected the accused's evidence as not credible, finding it inconsistent and evasive regarding the troubled nature of their marriage.

The judge accepted the complainant's evidence as credible and reliable, noting that her account was consistent with the relationship dynamics and corroborated by photographic evidence of injuries.

The accused was found guilty of assault and sexual assault but acquitted of mischief.

The applicant sought disclosure of school counselling records and Children's Aid Society records created following allegations of sexual assault made by a complainant.

The applicant argued the records were likely relevant to credibility and to establishing potential motive to fabricate.

The court applied the two-stage test under s. 278.3 of the Criminal Code.

While the court found the likely relevance threshold was met for the school counselling records, it determined that the best interests of justice test was not satisfied due to the availability of alternative sources of evidence and the high privacy interest in therapeutic records.

However, the court ordered production of the child welfare agency records for judicial review, finding a diminished expectation of privacy in those records and that they were not created in the context of a therapeutic relationship.