COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO
Miller, Dawe and Wilson JJ.A.
BETWEEN
His Majesty the King
Respondent
and
Anthony Ifill
Appellant
Howard L. Krongold, for the appellant
Maria Anghelidis, for the respondent
Heard: February 10, 2026
On appeal from the convictions entered by Justice Kimberly E. M. Moore of the Ontario Court of Justice, on April 4, 2024.
REASONS FOR DECISION
1This is an appeal from the appellant’s convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference.2 The appellant raises a single ground of appeal, arguing that the trial judge erred in referring to evidence as “corroborative” when, in its technical legal sense, the evidence was merely confirmatory of certain peripheral aspects of the complainant’s testimony. We do not agree that the trial judge made this error. For the reasons that follow, the appeal is dismissed.
BACKGROUND
2The convictions arise out of events that took place some 30-odd years ago. At the time, the appellant and the complainant’s mother were in a romantic relationship. The complainant was between the ages of 11 and 12.
3The complainant gave evidence about two separate incidents involving the appellant. In the first, she testified that as the appellant was leaving her mother’s apartment, she went to give him a hug to say goodbye. The appellant leaned down, kissed her on the lips and put his tongue in her mouth for a couple of seconds. She remembered being disgusted and alarmed by this, but did not tell her mother about it at the time.
4The second incident occurred at nighttime in the complainant’s bedroom. She recalled awakening to find the appellant beside her. He put his hand under the blankets and inside of her pajama pants and rubbed her pubic bone. She was shocked and mortified. The incident ended when her mother came into the room and asked the appellant what he was doing. Subsequently, the appellant told her not to tell anyone about what had happened.
5The appellant testified and denied the complainant’s allegations. The defence also called the complainant’s mother to testify. The stated purpose of calling the mother was to “expose some of the inconsistencies and contradictions with respect to the complainant’s evidence.” The defence argued that there were reliability concerns with the complainant’s evidence given how long ago the incidents occurred. In support of this argument, defence counsel pointed to several inconsistencies between the evidence of the mother and that of the complainant, including:
- The complainant testified that the relationship between the appellant and her mother lasted about a year, while her mother stated that it was only 5 months in duration;
- The complainant testified that she first disclosed the incidents to her mother when she was 15 years old; her mother recalled the first disclosure occurred when the complainant was 28 years old;
- The complainant testified that she once overheard the appellant and her mother discussing watching a movie which, given the context of the conversation, the complainant assumed was pornographic; her mother did not recall ever watching pornography with the appellant;
- The complainant testified that the appellant sat around the apartment in shorts which revealed his genitals, while her mother stated that that she had never observed any inappropriate behaviour on the part of the appellant; and
- The complainant testified that, after the appellant told her not tell anyone about the incident occurring in her bedroom, she left the room crying which her mother noticed; her mother had no recollection of this.
Defence counsel submitted that the mother’s evidence was the “opposite” of corroboration.
6The defence placed particular emphasis on the lack of corroboration from the mother as to the incident occurring in the complainant’s bedroom. The defence argued that “the Crown hopefully would have secured some corroboration of [the appellant’s] conduct in the bed”, especially given the complainant’s testimony that the incident had been interrupted by her mother entering the room. The mother, however, had no recollection of this incident. The defence suggested that this was a “serious contradiction” between the evidence of the complainant and her mother which ought to impact her reliability.
7The use of the word corroboration was addressed by the trial judge and counsel. During closing submissions, the trial judge asked defence counsel, “you’ve made repeated references to corroboration, and corroboration’s a legal term, and it’s something that I can certainly consider but we are all on the same page that corroboration is not required, right?” Defence counsel responded by agreeing that corroboration was not required, but that “[v]ery often, corroboration may tip the scale in favour of the Crown.”
8In her submissions, Crown counsel at trial indicated that the task for the trial judge was to assess what details the complainant remembered and whether those could be confirmed. Although the Crown argued that corroboration was not required, the Crown submitted that there was “some corroboration on some very significant details in this case”.
9The trial judge accepted the complainant’s evidence, finding it extremely credible and reliable. She found there to be no internal inconsistencies in her evidence and rejected the defence argument that the inconsistencies between the evidence of the complainant and that of her mother detracted from the complainant’s credibility and reliability. She noted that the complainant had a very clear recollection of the details surrounding the two incidents at issue.
10In the course of assessing the complainant’s testimony, the trial judge referred to 13 aspects of the mother’s evidence which “corroborated” the complainant’s. This evidence all related to extraneous details, like the colour of the appellant’s car or the name of his dog. None of it was “corroborative”, in its technical legal sense: see R. v. Casarsa, 2023 ONCA 826, at para. 12.
11The trial judge also addressed the lack of corroboration from the mother regarding the incident that occurred in the complainant’s bedroom. She noted that the mother testified that she trusted the appellant completely and would not have been concerned if she had seen him in the complainant’s room. The trial judge found that there was nothing unusual about the mother’s absence of memory of this incident given its lack of significance to her and stated: “I do not find that this is an inconsistency, or that [the mother’s] evidence fail[ed] to corroborate [the complainant’s]”.
12The trial judge rejected the appellant’s testimony and was not left in reasonable doubt by it. She found that it was implausible, inconsistent, and reflected an attempt by the appellant to distance himself from the complainant and the offences. She accordingly found the appellant guilty on both counts of sexual assault and sexual interference.
ANALYSIS
13The appellant argues that the trial judge erred in referring to the mother’s evidence as “corroborative” of the complainant’s. He points to the trial judge’s statement during submissions that corroboration is a “legal term” as proof that the trial judge was not using the term in a more informal sense. The appellant also relies on the presumption that trial judges know the law. He argues that the trial judge’s error could have affected the verdict due to the risk that she may have attributed exaggerated importance to evidence that was not truly corroborative. We reject this argument.
14It is well-established that a trial judge’s reasons must be read as a whole, in light of the evidence and arguments at trial: R. v. G.F., 2021 SCC 20, [2021] 1 S.C.R. 801, at para. 69. Appellate courts must refrain from parsing the “individual linguistic components” of a trial judge’s reasons: R. v. Kruk, 2024 SCC 7, 489 DLR (4th) 385, at para. 84. Isolated references to “corroboration” must not be taken out of context: R. v. Zhou, 2017 ONCA 90, 346 C.C.C. (3d) 490, at para. 42.
15On a proper contextual reading of the reasons, we find that the trial judge did not refer to “corroboration” in its technical legal sense. Instead, she merely treated the evidence as having confirmative value, bolstering the complainant’s general reliability. This was a permissible use of the evidence: R. v. S.R., 2023 ONCA 671, at para. 7.
16The trial judge’s reasons, including her references to “corroboration”, were responsive to the arguments made before her. The thrust of the defence submissions was an attack on the complainant’s reliability, given the historical nature of the offences. The defence pointed to inconsistencies between the mother’s testimony and the complainant’s in support of this argument. The Crown countered with various aspects of the two witnesses’ evidence that were consistent. In large part, both the inconsistencies pointed to by the defence, and the consistencies relied upon by the Crown, related only to peripheral matters. They did not directly contradict or support the complainant’s allegations but merely went to the complainant’s general memory of the time period in question.
17The trial judge used the 13 points of consistency between the evidence of the complainant and that of her mother for the very purpose urged upon her by the parties – as part of her consideration of the general reliability of the complainant. Nowhere in her reasons does she impermissibly suggest that the points of consistency provided any direct support for the truth of the complainant’s allegations or as a basis for preferring the complainant’s evidence over that of the appellant.
18The manner in which the trial judge dealt with the mother’s lack of memory about the incident in the complainant’s bedroom also reveals no error. Her use of the somewhat awkward phrasing that the mother’s evidence did not “fail to corroborate” the complainant’s testimony was simply a response to the defence argument that the lack of corroboration from the mother was a “serious inconsistency” which detracted from the complainant’s reliability.
19The trial judge’s use of “corroboration” in her reasons is consistent with the informal use of the word by the parties. Throughout their submissions at trial, counsel used “corroboration” and “confirmation” as interchangeable terms. Defence counsel referred to the various inconsistencies between the mother’s evidence and the complainant’s as the “opposite” of corroboration. In this context, it is not surprising that the trial judge adopted the parties’ informal use of the term.
20The trial judge’s single reference during closing submissions to corroboration being a “legal term” does not detract from this conclusion. In our view, the trial judge’s question to defence counsel was simply intended to clarify that he was not making an argument about “corroboration” in its technical legal sense.
21Finally, it should be noted that since corroboration is not required in order to find a person guilty of sexual assault, there would be no reason for the trial judge to have invoked its technical legal sense.
DISPOSITION
22The appeal is dismissed.
“B.W. Miller J.A.”
“J. Dawe J.A.”
“D.A. Wilson J.A.”
Footnotes
- This appeal is subject to a publication ban pursuant to s. 486.4 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46.
- The sexual interference conviction was stayed pursuant to Kienapple v. R., 1974 14 (SCC), [1975] 1 S.C.R. 729.