The accused, charged with fraud over $5000 and breach of probation in relation to a 'romance scam', brought pretrial applications to advance an alternate suspect theory and an inadequate police investigation defence.
The Crown brought an application to adduce evidence of the accused's prior discreditable conduct.
The court permitted the defence to argue the accused was an unwitting dupe and to cross-examine police on the adequacy of their investigation into the alternate suspect.
However, the court prohibited the defence from eliciting the accused's prior consistent statements to police or admitting an untranslated recorded conversation.
The Crown's application to adduce the accused's prior fraud conviction was dismissed due to its highly prejudicial nature.
