The court held three voir dires to determine whether hearsay statements from three witnesses who were unavailable to testify could be admitted for the truth of their contents.
The defence sought to admit statements from Aaron Downs, Salvatore Graziano, and Idil Farah regarding an alleged assault involving the accused and a complainant.
The Crown conceded necessity for all three statements.
The court applied the principled exception to the hearsay rule, requiring proof of both necessity and threshold reliability on a balance of probabilities.
The court granted the defence application with respect to Downs' statement but denied the applications regarding Graziano's and Farah's statements.
