The appellants' locked safe was stolen from their restaurant and later recovered by police.
An officer investigating the appellants for suspected tax violations, who was not involved in the theft investigation, photocopied documents from the safe without a warrant and forwarded them to Revenue Canada.
The Supreme Court of Canada held that the appellants retained a residual expectation of privacy in the stolen safe's contents.
The officer's actions constituted an unreasonable search under s. 8 of the Charter.
The Court excluded the evidence under s. 24(2), finding that the officer's disregard for regular police procedures and failure to leave the investigation to taxation authorities rendered the breach sufficiently serious that admitting the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
