The accused was charged with robbery with a firearm arising from a gunpoint robbery in Scarborough on December 3, 2010.
The Crown sought to adduce an audio-recorded confession made by the accused at the police station.
The accused alleged the statement was not voluntarily made, claiming he was assaulted and threatened by police in an unrecorded interview room before giving his statement.
The court held a voir dire to determine the admissibility of the confession.
The central issue was the credibility of competing accounts of what occurred in the unrecorded interview room between the accused and detectives.
While the court found the accused's testimony not credible on certain points, the failure to audio or video record the pre-statement interview, combined with the accused's consistent testimony, his lack of criminal record, and his complaint of injuries to a nurse upon arrival at the detention centre, created a reasonable doubt as to the voluntariness of the confession.
The confession was excluded from evidence.
