Court of Appeal for Ontario
Laskin, Goudge and Gillese JJ.A.
BETWEEN
Her Majesty the Queen
Respondent
and
Michael Belleus
Appellant
Counsel:
Robert B. Carew, for the appellant
Christine Josic and Nicholas Devlin, for the respondent
Heard: December 10, 2012
On appeal from the conviction entered on April 5, 2011 by Justice Neil L. Kozloff of the Ontario Court of Justice.
APPEAL BOOK ENDORSEMENT
1The appellant’s main ground of appeal is that the pat down search conducted by the officer was unreasonable because it went too far and became a search for inculpatory evidence. We do not accept the appellant’s submission.
2The trial judge gave a thorough and well reasoned ruling in which he found that the officer’s search was conducted solely for officer safety. That finding was well supported by Officer Hagarty’s evidence, which the trial judge accepted. Accordingly this main ground of appeal fails.
3The appellant’s second ground of appeal is that the trial judge’s finding that the cocaine belonged to the appellant was speculative. We disagree.
4The amount of cocaine and its value justified the trial judge’s common sense inference that it belonged to the appellant.
5Finally we note that s. 10(b) was not argued in this appeal.
6The appeal is dismissed.