Lee Sela

The offender, a 41-year-old Black woman, was convicted by a jury of aggravated assault after stabbing the victim multiple times during an altercation in a pub parking lot.

The court rejected the defence's request for a conditional sentence, noting the severity of the victim's injuries and the offender's failure to retreat.

While acknowledging the offender's difficult background and the impact of anti-Black racism, the court found a reformatory sentence inappropriate.

The offender was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment, less 22 days of pre-sentence custody credit, along with ancillary orders.

Sentencing for sexual interference involving online communications with a 13-year-old child, explicit image exchanges, deception about age, and sexual touching while the child was asleep at a sleepover.

The court held that denunciation and deterrence remained the primary objectives under ss. 718.01 and 718.2 of the Criminal Code and that a conditional sentence would only rarely be appropriate for sexual offences against children absent exceptional circumstances.

Although the offender was a youthful first offender with strong rehabilitation prospects, counselling, family support, and significant collateral consequences to his family, those factors did not justify a community sentence.

A custodial sentence of 18 months followed by two years' probation was imposed, together with DNA, no-contact, SOIRA, and s. 161 orders.

The defendants applied under s. 11(b) of the Charter for a stay of charges due to unreasonable delay, as the time from charge to the anticipated end of trial exceeded the 30-month presumptive ceiling.

The court found no defence-caused delay and no discrete events that would justify the delay.

Furthermore, the case was not deemed particularly complex to rebut the presumption of unreasonable delay.

Despite acknowledging significant judicial resource limitations, the court concluded that the 30.5-month delay was unreasonable and granted the application, staying the charges against both defendants.

The Crown sought to admit expert forensic accounting evidence from Jeffrey J. Good to establish that approximately $49,500 in seized currency was proceeds of drug trafficking.

The defendants were jointly charged with possession of various prohibited substances for trafficking and possession of proceeds of crime.

The court applied the two-step admissibility test for expert evidence from *Mohan* and *White Burgess*.

While the expert was qualified, the court found the evidence lacked logical relevance to directly link the seized funds to drug trafficking over the seven-year period analyzed.

Concerns were also raised regarding the unexplained expansion of the expert's mandate from one defendant to both, and the arbitrary selection of the seven-year period.

The court concluded that the potential prejudicial effects of the evidence, including inviting speculation and devolving the case into a remote inquiry, outweighed its slight probative value.

Consequently, the expert evidence was deemed inadmissible.

During a trial for possession for the purpose of trafficking, the Crown applied to admit expert opinion evidence from a police officer regarding whether the accused's possession of Oxycodone and fentanyl patches was for the purpose of trafficking.

The court ruled the evidence inadmissible.

The officer's opinion on the Oxycodone lacked probative value because he conceded the quantity was equally consistent with legitimate prescription use as with trafficking.

Regarding the fentanyl, the court found the officer lacked the necessary medical knowledge and experience with prescription patterns to provide a reliable expert opinion, noting that a doctor or pharmacist would be the appropriate expert.