The accused brought a Charter motion seeking exclusion of drug evidence seized during a warrantless vehicle search following his arrest for drug trafficking.
The defence argued that late disclosure of additional confidential informant tips undermined police credibility and that the Crown had failed to establish reasonable and probable grounds for arrest.
The court held that although disclosure had been late and piecemeal, any prejudice was cured by an adjournment and there was no evidence of bad faith.
Applying the test in Debot for informant-based police action, the court found the confidential source reliable and the information sufficiently corroborated through police investigation.
The court concluded that police had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest and that the search incident to arrest was lawful.
