Leslie Pringle

The accused, a Toronto police officer, was charged with criminal harassment and assault on the basis of a private complaint laid in December 2010.

The accused brought an application to stay the charges pursuant to s.11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the grounds of unreasonable delay.

The Crown's office had delayed assigning an outside Crown to the case due to a conflict of interest, and the complainant had refused to provide disclosure until after her own trial was completed.

The total delay from the laying of the information to the scheduled trial date was approximately 35 months, with the court attributing 23 months of that delay to the state.

The court found that the delay was unreasonable and stayed the charges.

The Crown applied under section 123 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for access to youth records of A.B., who was convicted of a gang-related assault in 2007.

The Crown sought to use these records to assist its expert witness in establishing that the accused in a 2010 murder case were associated with gang members who committed gang offences in rival gang territory.

The application was dismissed.

The court found that access to A.B.'s records was not necessary for the proper administration of justice, as the Crown had access to records of adult co-offenders from the same incident.

The temporal remoteness of the 2007 assault to the 2010 murder, combined with minimal evidence of A.B.'s continuing gang involvement or connection to the accused, rendered the records insufficiently probative.

The court also found that A.B.'s privacy interests outweighed the Crown's interest in the records.

The accused was charged with impaired driving after driving approximately 50 meters while intoxicated.

The Crown conceded that the accused was impaired and had driven the vehicle.

The sole issue was whether the defence of necessity was available.

The accused testified that he was assaulted by a group of hostile males, one of whom brandished a knife, and that he drove to escape the imminent peril.

The court found that all three elements of the necessity defence were satisfied: there was clear and imminent peril, no reasonable legal alternative existed, and the harm inflicted was proportionate to the harm avoided.

The accused was acquitted.

The accused was charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle following a collision with a taxi cab on October 9, 2011.

After consuming three beers at a bar, the accused collided with a taxi, failed to stop, drove the wrong way down a one-way street, and nearly collided with a police vehicle.

The Crown alleged impairment by alcohol.

The defence argued that the accused's observed symptoms could be attributed to shock from the accident and his inexperience as a driver.

The court found the accused guilty, determining that the totality of circumstances—including the collision, subsequent driving errors, officer observations of unsteadiness and incoherence, and the accused's own admission that alcohol was affecting his social functioning—established impairment beyond a reasonable doubt.

The accused was charged with sexual assault following an incident on May 29, 2011, where he engaged in sexual intercourse with a highly intoxicated woman who had also consumed cocaine, ketamine, and GHB.

The complainant had no memory of meeting the accused or consenting to sexual activity.

The accused claimed the complainant consented and appeared normal to him.

The court found that the complainant lacked capacity to consent due to her extreme intoxication and drug use, and that the accused was either knowingly engaging in sexual activity with an incapacitated person or was wilfully blind to her incapacity.

The court convicted the accused of sexual assault.

The accused was charged with impaired driving and over 80 following observations of erratic driving on Highway 401 and subsequent breath samples showing more than three times the legal limit.

The Crown conceded that the accused's Charter rights were breached: a strip search violated s.8 rights, and the lack of an interpreter violated s.10(b) rights.

The court found the impaired driving charge proven beyond a reasonable doubt based on the totality of evidence including poor driving, physical signs of impairment, and odour of alcohol.

The breath sample evidence was excluded under s.24(2) due to the Charter breaches, resulting in acquittal on the over 80 charge.

For the impaired driving charge, the court declined to stay proceedings despite the serious Charter violations, finding this was not one of the clearest cases warranting a stay.

Instead, the court imposed a nominal $1 fine and the mandatory one-year driving prohibition to reflect the seriousness of the illegal strip search while protecting the public interest.

A police officer with 24 years of exemplary service pleaded guilty to assault after kicking and stepping on a restrained, intoxicated prisoner in custody.

The Crown sought a suspended sentence to denounce the conduct, while the defence sought a conditional discharge.

The court imposed a conditional discharge with 12 months probation and 100 hours of community service, finding that while the assault was a gross breach of trust requiring denunciation, the minimal violence, absence of injury, momentary loss of control, and officer's exemplary record made a discharge appropriate in the circumstances.

The accused was charged with refusing to comply with a demand to provide breath samples.

The Crown's case was straightforward: the police had proper grounds to demand samples and the accused verbally refused.

The sole issue was whether the accused, whose first language was Russian, was provided meaningful access to counsel in a comprehensible manner.

The court found that the police took appropriate steps to accommodate the language barrier, including repeating rights, explaining them in plain language, arranging for a Russian-speaking officer, and securing a Russian-speaking duty counsel.

Although the accused claimed confusion about his legal obligations, the court found he understood his choices and their consequences through the translation provided during the breath testing procedure.

The conviction was upheld.