Louise Charron

The appellant appealed jury convictions on multiple sexual offence counts and, in the alternative, sentence.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial was undermined by multiple charge errors, including inadequate instructions on prior inconsistent statements, prior consistent statements, consent, position of trust, similar fact evidence, reasonable doubt, and unanimity, together with an incomplete readback and problematic prosecutorial comments.

Although some individual errors might have been curable, their cumulative effect prevented application of the proviso.

The convictions on counts 3 to 6 were set aside and a new trial was ordered on those counts.

The appellant appealed sentence from a three-year penitentiary term.

The court agreed that a conditional sentence was not appropriate given the nature of the offence, but held that the circumstances of the offence and the offender did not justify a penitentiary term.

Significant weight was given to the appellant's youth, lack of criminal record, the immediate context of the offence, genuine remorse, and fresh evidence showing meaningful rehabilitative progress.

The appeal was allowed and the sentence was reduced to two years less a day followed by 18 months' probation, together with a 10-year weapons prohibition order under s. 109 of the Criminal Code.

The appellant appealed a jury conviction for sexual assault, advancing grounds relating to limits on cross-examination, alleged misapprehension of evidence, the jury instruction on assessing the reliability of a young person's memory, and the admission and use of hearsay evidence.

The court held that the cross-examination directions were appropriate, the review of the evidence was fair and accurate, and the impugned instruction was proper when read in the context of the charge as a whole.

Although some evidence would preferably not have been elicited, the court found no reversible error and no miscarriage of justice, particularly given the absence of defence objections and the trial judge's limiting instructions.

The appellant appealed a conviction for sexual assault arising from an allegation that intercourse continued after consent was withdrawn and escalated to forced anal intercourse.

The Crown had adduced similar fact evidence from the appellant's former spouse concerning seven alleged incidents of physical and sexual abuse.

The court held that the proposed evidence lacked the necessary pattern or distinctive similarity, was weakened by credibility frailties and potential collusion, and primarily invited impermissible propensity reasoning.

Because its slight probative value was outweighed by its highly prejudicial effect, the evidence should not have been admitted.

A new trial was ordered.

The Crown appealed an order staying proceedings on the basis that the respondent was not tried within a reasonable time under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal upheld the motion judge’s allocation of delay, including a finding of unreasonable institutional delay after accounting for defence-attributable time and inherent case requirements.

The court also upheld the finding of prejudice, including restrictive bail conditions and the effect of delay on witness memory in the context of late-discovered evidence.

Balancing the respondent’s fair trial interests against society’s interest in prosecuting a serious offence, the court held the stay was justified and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant appealed convictions for conspiring to traffic in a narcotic and possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking arising from a heroin shipment from Thailand to Canada.

He argued the verdicts were unreasonable and that intercepted private communications in Chinese were admitted contrary to s. 189(5)(a) of the Criminal Code because he was not served with a written transcript in the original language.

The court held the trial judge was entitled to reject the appellant's exculpatory explanation and that the findings of guilt were fully supported by the evidence.

It further held that s. 189(5)(a) is an evidentiary provision to be interpreted liberally, and that where the Crown proved the communications viva voce through a translator, service of the transcribed English translations constituted a statement setting out full particulars of the private communications.

The conviction appeal was dismissed.

The appeal concerned whether an Ontario court retained jurisdiction to vary a spousal support order made under the former Divorce Act when neither former spouse resided in Ontario and one former spouse did not attorn to jurisdiction.

The court held that the Divorce Act, 1985, including its transitional provisions, governed the variation application, and that the moving party had not commenced any variation proceeding before repeal of the former statute.

The court further held that s. 43(c) of the Interpretation Act did not preserve any acquired, accrued, or accruing right to seek variation because no steps had been taken before repeal to exercise that statutory entitlement.

As neither residency nor acceptance of jurisdiction under s. 5(1) was established, Ontario lacked jurisdiction and the variation application was dismissed.

A young person appealed a sexual assault conviction arising from a dispute over whether consent to sexual intercourse had been withdrawn.

The court held that the trial judge’s approach to the appellant’s testimony was fundamentally flawed because it was rejected in its totality on an unsupported view of inconsistency, without proper consideration of other evidence supporting that version of events.

The reasons also raised concern that different standards of scrutiny may have been applied to the accused’s and complainant’s evidence.

The appeal against conviction was allowed, the verdict was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

In light of that result, the court did not address the disposition appeal, while noting the Crown’s concession that the original disposition exceeded the statutory maximum under the Young Offenders Act.

The moving party sought security for costs of an appeal from a summary judgment dismissing the action against him.

The court held that, although the criteria under rule 56.01(1)(d) were met, the determinative question was whether it was just to order security.

Given the appellants' insufficient assets in Ontario and the risk that appeal costs would be unrecoverable from non-resident parties, the court found it just to order further security.

The request to set security on a solicitor-client scale was refused because the appeal was not frivolous and raised a serious issue.

Security for costs of the appeal was fixed at $20,000, with costs of the motion to the moving party.

The appellant sought a stay pending appeal of an injunction prohibiting it from dealing in merchandise bearing licensed Anne of Green Gables names or indicia.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the court accepted that some appeal issues were arguable but held the appellant failed to establish irreparable harm that a stay would avert, given its pre-existing financial instability and doubtful prospects of recovery even if successful on appeal.

The court further held the balance of convenience favoured the respondents because continued unauthorized sales and royalty non-payment would impair the integrity of the licensing program and harm other licensees.

The motion was dismissed with costs.

In advance of a criminal conviction appeal, the appellant brought motions to compel attendance and production from an alleged alternate suspect and treating physicians to support a proposed fresh evidence application grounded in ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

The court held that the alternate suspect was compellable because the defence sought exculpatory, not predominantly incriminating, evidence.

Production of one physician's records was granted on consent, but the application concerning a psychiatrist's records was dismissed without prejudice for failure to proceed within the Criminal Code records regime.

On the Crown's responding motion, production and examination were granted for one psychologist where threshold relevance was established, but denied for a correctional risk assessment for lack of sufficient evidentiary foundation.

Appeal concerning priority between prior perfected PPSA security interests and a later court-ordered charge granted to a mortgagee in possession for occupancy costs incurred while warehousing the bankrupts' personal property.

The court held that the priority issue was not governed by either the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act or the Personal Property Security Act, and instead had to be resolved under common law and equitable principles.

The majority concluded that, although the appellants' security interests were first in time, their continuing and concerted misconduct in delaying payment of occupancy costs justified postponing their priority in favour of the mortgagee's charge.

The appeals were dismissed and the mortgagee's priority was upheld.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of a restricted weapon and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, arguing that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence, improperly relied on his failure to testify, and lacked evidentiary support for a trafficking-purpose finding.

The Court of Appeal held that it was permissible for the trial judge to note the absence of evidence supporting any inference other than guilt.

The court found sufficient circumstantial evidence linking the appellant to the motor vehicle in which the weapon and drugs were found.

Any misapprehension as to the location of the drugs in the vehicle did not amount to reversible error, and the conviction appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for attempted murder and related weapons offences following a jury trial.

He argued that the trial judge erred in the charge to the jury regarding the complainant’s credibility, the burden of proof, a corrective instruction addressing an improper defence comment, and a comment on identification evidence.

The court held that the charge, read as a whole, fairly and adequately presented the defence theory and did not mislead the jury on burden of proof.

The trial judge’s comments were either proper or adequately qualified.

The conviction appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed sentences imposed at the conclusion of three separate trials arising from three discrete sets of criminal acts occurring within roughly two weeks.

The Court of Appeal considered the aggregate 18-year sentence, functionally equivalent to 20 years with pre-trial custody, through the lens of the totality principle.

Given the combination of firearm, drug trafficking, forcible confinement, assault, and attempted murder offences, including planning and deliberation in the most serious incident, the court held the overall sentence was fit and within range.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeals were dismissed.

In this medical malpractice appeal, the defendants challenged findings that negligent immobilization of a hand fracture caused permanent disability and substantial damages.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge applied the correct specialist standard of care, properly inferred causation under the flexible approach in medical negligence cases, and was not required to apportion between tortious and non-tortious causes once the negligent treatment materially contributed to the entire injury.

The contributory negligence argument based on discontinuing physiotherapy failed because the evidence supported that the treatment was inappropriate and the patient sought alternative care.

The appeal succeeded only on quantum, with the award for past loss of income set aside for lack of evidentiary foundation.

The appellant challenged a summary conviction appeal order on the basis that his right under s. 11(b) of the Charter had been infringed by delay.

The court held that the primary consideration was the appellant's lack of reasonable diligence in seeking special disclosure, and the police disclosure delays could not be treated as running consecutively for the s. 11(b) analysis.

In light of the limited prejudice shown and the nature of the charge, the court found no constitutional breach.

The appeal was dismissed.

This appeal concerned a priority dispute under the Personal Property Security Act arising from refinancing of a printing press subject to a lease with an option to purchase.

The appellant bank discharged the original lender's security, enabling the debtor to obtain legal title, and then took its own security interest.

The court held that this financing enabled the debtor to acquire further rights in the collateral and therefore satisfied the statutory definition of a purchase-money security interest.

Because the statutory conditions for priority were met, the appellant's security interest ranked ahead of the respondent's earlier perfected general security agreement.

The appeal was allowed and priority declared in favour of the appellant.

The accused appealed convictions for criminal negligence causing bodily harm and failing to remain at the scene of an accident arising from a parking lot incident where he claimed he was fleeing an assault.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred by permitting Crown cross-examination on the accused's failure, upon surrender and arrest, to complain to police about the alleged assault.

The court found that using the accused's silence to attack credibility and support an inference of recent fabrication violated s. 7 of the Charter.

The jury's questions and the contradictory instructions on silence demonstrated the significance of the error.

The appeal was allowed, the convictions were quashed, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed a conviction for criminal harassment arising from sexually explicit comments to a 14-year-old complainant, a subsequent sexual telephone call, and several hang-up calls after the complainant told him not to contact her again and called police.

The court applied the five-element framework for criminal harassment under s. 264 and held that the full factual context, not the hang-up calls in isolation, established harassment, knowledge, fear for safety, and the reasonableness of that fear.

The complainant's age, the sexually charged nature of the prior interactions, and the explicit warning to stop contacting her supported the conviction.

The appeal was dismissed.