Melanie J. Webb

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual assault arising from an incident involving his employee.

He argued the trial judge improperly presumed the complainant’s truthfulness, misapprehended evidence, and failed to properly apply the credibility framework in R. v. W.(D.).

The court rejected these arguments and upheld the conviction, finding the trial judge’s credibility findings and reliance on corroborative text message evidence were open on the record.

However, the sentencing judge erred by relying on unproven medical diagnoses in the victim impact statement and by treating the nature of the touching (over or under clothing) as irrelevant to sentence.

The appellate court set aside the custodial sentence and imposed a conditional sentence in the community.

Five police officers were convicted of attempting to obstruct justice, and three of them were also convicted of perjury, arising from a warrantless search of a drug suspect's apartment and subsequent false memo book entries and testimony to conceal the timing of the search.

The Crown sought penitentiary sentences of three to four years, while the defence sought non-custodial sentences.

The court considered the serious breach of trust and the need for denunciation and deterrence, but also weighed significant mitigating factors, including the catastrophic impact of the prolonged 14-year investigation and proceedings on the officers' lives, careers, and health.

The court concluded that a penitentiary term was not warranted and imposed a 45-day conditional sentence (house arrest) for each offender.

Following a merits decision finding the respondents engaged in a fraudulent boiler room investment scheme that raised over US $2.2 million from investors, the Ontario Securities Commission held a hearing to determine sanctions and costs.

The Commission ordered permanent trading and market prohibitions against all respondents, with a limited RRSP carve-out for one respondent.

The individual respondents were ordered to pay administrative penalties ranging from $100,000 to $350,000, reflecting their respective roles in the fraud.

The Commission also ordered disgorgement of the funds obtained from investors, totaling over $2.1 million, and apportioned Staff's hearing costs of $85,758.94 among the respondents.

The monetary sanctions were ordered to be allocated for the benefit of third parties, including the defrauded investors.