ONTARIO COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
— AND —
Michael Temprile
Before Justice J. De Filippis
Heard on: September 25, 26, October 9, and December 22, 2025
Reasons for Judgment released on: January 29, 2026
Counsel: Ms. T. Hijazi, counsel for the Crown Mr. V.J. Singh, counsel for the defendant
De Filippis, J.:
INTRODUCTION
1The defendant was tried on a charge of pointing a firearm. There is no dispute that the events leading up to this charge occurred at a home in Lincoln during the evening of April 23 and morning of April 24, 2023, and that the rifle found by police at this time and place is a firearm as defined in the Criminal Code. Moreover, the following facts are not controversial: The home is owned by the defendant’s mother. It is a small house with an open concept kitchen, two bedrooms, a storage room and a bathroom on the main floor. There is a basement apartment. The defendant lived in the basement. He rented the main floor to Ciera Bailey and her four-year-old son, Laughlin. On evening in question, Ms. Bailey was visited by a friend, Fernando Fortino. They were seated at the main floor kitchen table and were joined by the defendant. The adults all consumed alcohol. Ava Dowling, then a 15-year-old student, arrived. By the time this gathering ended, the defendant was lying, bloody and unconscious, on a table outside the home. Ms. Bailey, Mr. Fortino, and Ms. Dowling left in a motor vehicle. A rifle had been thrown in some shrubbery at the end of the driveway. Police were called by a neighbour several hours later.
2I heard from everyone present in the home that evening as well as several police officers. The credibility and reliability of the police evidence is not in dispute.
3These reasons explain why I find the defendant not guilty.
EVIDENCE
4Ms. Dowling is now 18 years old. She had been dropped off at Ms. Bailey’s home. The latter was to take her to school the following day. On arrival, Ms. Dowling saw the three adults at the “kitchen island”. She saw the defendant drinking alcohol, but not the other adults. As it was late, after a few minutes, she went to a bedroom to lie down. Laughlin was asleep in this room. After some laughter, she heard “a commotion”. She heard yelling “don’t touch me” and “get away from me”. The defendant screamed back but she could not make out his words. Ms. Dowling came out of the bedroom. The defendant was not there. She heard a gun being put together ‘from the bottom of the [basement] stairs” and that “it seemed very close”. She described this as a “clicking noise” and added that she knew it was a shotgun because she had seen one used by her mother’s ex-boyfriend, who was an avid hunter. Ms. Bailey said, “beds now”. Ms. Dowling testified, “I was terrified and told to go to my room”. She went back to the bedroom and tried to calm down Laughlin, who had awakened. She heard “Ciera” repeatedly tell “Michael to put the gun down”. Ms. Bailey came into the bedroom and closed the door. The defendant was “banging on the door”. The door did not have a lock. Ms. Bailey left the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Within minutes he heard the defendant running around the main floor shouting that he wanted to know where Ms. Bailey was. Ms. Bailey returned to the bedroom and took Ms. Dowling and Laughlin outside with her.
5On leaving the home, Ms. Dowling saw the defendant “sprawled out on a round glass table” just outside the front door. His face “was covered in blood, his eyes were shut, and his pants were soaked with urine”. They went to a motor vehicle parked on the property. Mr. Fortino was at that vehicle. Ms. Dowling added that: “I saw the gun that Ceria [Bailey] had taken from him. She put it in a ditch. The gun was illuminated by headlights of the car. We took Ceria’s friends car. He drove them away.”
6When asked to explain how she felt that evening, Ms. Dowling said: “Terrified, absolutely terrified. I can’ t take any yelling or seeing a gun or having someone on the other side of a door from me”. She added that because of what happened, she no longer speaks to Ms. Bailey and that “Family and Child Services became involved”.
7When challenged, Ms. Dowling insisted she her the clicking of a firearm. She was certain she spent no more than five minutes with the adults on arrival at the home and that she saw the defendant drinking whiskey. She denied the suggestion that during the evening she accompanied Mr. Fortin for a drive to buy a bottle of wine. Two hours after her arrival they drove away in Mr. Fortin’s motor vehicle, leaving the defendant unconscious. As they were leaving Ms. Bailey took her phone from her. Ms. Dowling did not ask why she had done this. She does not know what was discussed during this drive and denied that they “all got their stories together before the police could interview them”.
8Ms. Dowling agreed that when interviewed by the police about this matter, one year later, she did not mention the defendant banging on the bedroom door while she hid in fear. She insisted she saw a shotgun in the ditch. When shown photographs taken by police of the firearm they found there, the witness agreed it was a rifle, not a shotgun.
9Ms. Bailey testified that at the time of these events she and her son had been tenants in the home for about six months. On the day in question, she had been asked to watch “Ava” and take her to school the following day. She did not recall Ava’s last name or the school she went to. When she arrived at the home, she brought her son and Ava to their bedrooms. Mr. Fortino arrived about one hour later and they had a few drinks. The defendant came from the basement and joined them in the kitchen area. It was evident to Ms. Bailey that the defendant had been drinking alcohol and was already intoxicated. She does not recall Ava being with them during the evening but thinks she may have come out of her room once.
10Ms. Bailey recalled that there was a 1.5 litre bottle of wine in the kitchen. She cannot say if Ava went with Mr. Fortino to buy it. She denied that she and the defendant brought their firearms to the kitchen while discussing guns. She said that while drinking the wine, the defendant was disrespectful toward her. Mr Fortino to the defendant to go downstairs. Ms. Bailey testified that the defendant “went dark”, that is “got angry”. Once the defendant was in the basement, Ms. Bailey heard “a firearm being loaded”. She explained she was once a hunter and knows this sound. Mr. Fortin had gone outside to get cigarettes from his motor vehicle.
11Ms. Bailey took her son from his bedroom to Ava’s room and closed the door. The defendant banged on the door. Ms. Bailey testified that she did not want shots fired through the door, so she opened it. When she heard the defendant in the hallway, she opened the door and saw the defendant point a firearm at her face. Ms. Bailey explained she was not intoxicated but that due to the passage of time, she does not recall details of what occurred:
All I recall is I got the firearm off him, and he fell down. He got up and got firearm back. I managed to get him outside and get firearm back again. I gave him a good couple of punches to his face inside and also outside. I also recall being on top of him at one point inside”. The defendant fell onto the glass table and “passed out.
Ms. Bailey threw the firearm in the ditch at the end of the road. She said that Mr. Fortin, her son, and Ava were in the motor vehicle at this time. They left in that vehicle, without calling the police.
12Ms. Bailey could not recall if the defendant said anything during this struggle. She acknowledged telling the police that at one point he said, “what the fuck did you do this to me for”. Ms. Bailey has not kept in touch with Ava since these events. She has not spoken to Mr. Fortin in the past year.
13Ms. Bailey denied that Mr. Fortin helped her “beat the crap out of [the defendant]”. She said, “I punched him, he deserved it “. Later, she testified that when she and the defendant came outside during the struggle, Mr. Fortin punched the defendant twice and he fell, unconscious, on the glass table.
14Fernando Fortino is 46 years old and works as an electrician. Without prompting he began his testimony by stating that “people make stupid mistakes” and is “grateful nothing happened”. He added, with reference to the defendant, that, “I was there to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid, he is not a bad man”. In answer to questions, Mr. Fortino said that he, along with Ms. Bailey, and the defendant were drinking alcohol on the evening in question. He also smoked marihuana. He denied being intoxicated. He did not see Ms. Dowling, who arrived after he did, consume alcohol or drugs. At some point he went to buy a bottle of wine and Ms. Dowling accompanied him. He does not recall Ms. Bailey and the defendant “playing around with guns”.
15According to Mr. Fortino, while they were having drinks in the kitchen area, the defendant said “disrespectful things” to Ms. Bailey. He told the defendant to “shut the fuck up”. Ms. Bailey told him to go back downstairs. Mr. Fortin went outside. He heard screaming from inside the front door of the house and then saw Ms. Bailey struggling with the defendant over possession of a firearm. Mr. Fortin rushed to the scene and punched the defendant causing him to land on a patio table. He agreed that he knocked out the defendant’s teeth and rendered him unconscious. He told Ms. Bailey to get her son and Ms. Dowling into his car and they left. He believes it was about 2 AM. He later received a telephone call from the police inquiring if he had kidnapped them.
16Before leaving, Mr. Fortin told Ms. Bailey to throw the firearm she had been struggling over into a ditch so the defendant would not have access to it if he awoke while they were leaving. He agreed that when interviewed by police he reported it was a shotgun with a swing bar. When shown photographs of what the police found in the ditch area, he replied, “it looked like a shotgun, let’s call it a rifle”.
17Mr. Fortin denied being concerned he might be charged with assault causing bodily harm because of these events. He said, “I saved a life…if someone is being threatened with a shotgun, I am taking him out…”. On leaving the courtroom, Mr. Fortino said, he wished the defendant well, “that everyone makes mistakes”, and he hoped the defendant had “learned from this”.
18PC Beckwith responded to a telephone call from the defendant’s neighbour who reported that the defendant had come over to say he had been attacked. On arrival the officer spoke to the defendant and was told that Mr. Fortino and a 15 year old had taken his tenant and her son away. He added that all had been having drinks and when he awoke everyone was gone. The defendant said he had consumed eight to ten beers.
19PC Decker also arrived on the property. He located the firearm in question, a rifle, dangling in a large shrub area of trees and vines, close to the roadway in front of the house. There is ditch here with flowing water.
20After being arrested, the defendant provided a video recorded statement in an interview with PC Decker. The admissibility of this statement is not in issue. The defendant confirmed that on the date in question he was at his home with the civilian witnesses called by the Crown. He spent the evening drinking beer and wine. When asked what had happened, he said,
Honest to God, I blacked out, so I don’t know. I don’t know how I got in a fight. Like I was bleeding in the head and my glasses were knocked off, so I must have got hit in the face and head, I guess, but I don’t really know to tell you the truth…I was sitting in the kitchen, hanging out with a few people and that was it. And then I woke up this morning downstairs.
21The interview continued as follows:
Officer: And you don’t have any recollection leading up to that?
Defendant: Nothing
Officer: Because the allegation that we’re saying is that you grabbed your 22 and pointed it at her
Defendant: And I can’t fucking believe I did that. But no, I don’t remember. That’s the problem.
22The Crown and Defence filed an agreed statement of facts, in lieu of calling Sgt. Wakentin as a witness. The purpose of the statement is to establish the investigative steps taken to locate the person involved in the incident in question and summarize information obtained by Sgt. Warkentin. The latter eventually contacted Mr. Fortino the following morning. He said he, Ms. Bailey and Ms. Dowling were in Paris, Ontario. Ms. Dowling’s mother told Sgt. Warkentin that her daughter was upset by what had happened at the defendant’s home and added she was concerned that Ms. Bailey had placed her daughter in an unsafe situation that might trigger renewed interest from Family and Children’s Services. Ms. Bailey reported the following to the officer: She, along with the defendant and Mr. Fortino, had been drinking all day and evening. The defendant became “dark” and went to the basement. She heard him load a shotgun and she locked herself in a bedroom. The defendant tried to kick in the door to that room and when she opened it, he pointed the shotgun at her face. She attacked him and took the firearm away. The struggle continued outside where Mr. Fortino punched the defendant, knocking him unconscious. The threw the firearm across the street into a ditch and left the area.
23The defendant is 57 years old. He testified that on the day in question he was in his basement apartment when, at about 8 PM, Ms. Bailey and her son arrived after a day out. He went upstairs and also saw a young girl by the name of Ava. Soon after, Mr. Fortino arrived. The parties sat in the kitchen area and consumed alcohol and marihuana. At about 9 PM, Mr. Fortino and Ava left the home and returned with a bottle of wine. They drank this and everyone was getting along well. When the discussion turned to the subject of guns, Ms. Bailey brought a shotgun from her bedroom and the defendant retrieved his rifle from the basement. He removed the bullets. The parties continued to talk as they looked at the firearms.
24The defendant does not recall anything else until he awoke on the couch in his home at about 3 AM. He was bleeding from the face and back of the head. He saw that the upstairs storage room had been ransacked and that he was alone in the home. He worried there had been a home invasion and went to see his neighbour for the police to be called.
25The defendant acknowledges his statement to police and maintains he told them the truth. He was shocked to be accused of pointing a firearm. He cannot believe he would do such a thing. However, he has no memory of events between the consumption of the wine and awaking several hours later.
ANALYSIS
26The Crown carries the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This fundamental principle of law means that if the defendant has called evidence, there must be an acquittal where the testimony is believed or where the testimony is not believed but raises a reasonable doubt. An acquittal will follow even if the defence evidence is rejected, but the remaining evidence fails to convince, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty (R. v. W(D), 1991 93 (SCC), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742).
27Probable guilt is not the criminal law standard of proof - it is closer to certainty. A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense which must be logically based on the evidence or lack of evidence (R. v. Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33). In applying the standard, I can accept some, part, or none of what a witness states. The testimony of a witness is assessed based on the person’s sincerity and accuracy.
28I accept the sincerity of the defendant ‘s assertion that he does not believe he would point a firearm at Ms. Bailey. However, he has no memory of the events. As such, his belief has little evidentiary value. However, this does not end the inquiry. In this regard, I note what the Court of Appeal for Ontario said in R v Hoffman 2021 ONCA 781 at paragraph 40:
….although some of the propositions articulated in W.(D.) refer only to the “testimony” or “evidence” of the accused, it is settled that the W.(D.) principles apply to the evaluation of the credibility of exculpatory evidence given by any witness, including Crown witnesses….
29Ms. Bailey is the only person who testified that the defendant pointed a firearm at her. Her testimony is problematic. So is that of Mr. Fortin and Ms. Dowling.
30Mr. Fortin’ statements before and after questions put to him at this trial assert that the defendant made a mistake and offered the hope he has learned from the experience. I assume, from his trial testimony, that the defendant’s mistake was to struggle with Ms. Bailey. The mistake cannot be the charge before the Court since Mr. Fortin did not see or claim to see the defendant point a firearm at Ms. Bailey. I also assume that the lesson learned is from the fact Mr. Fortin punched him in the face. Even, taking these statements at face value, why leave an unconscious, urine soaked, and bloodied, man without offering or appealing for aid?
31Ms. Dowling testified that only the defendant was drinking alcohol. This contradicts the testimony of all other civilian witnesses. Ms. Dowling denied accompanying Mr. Fortin in his motor vehicle to obtain wine. Mr. Fortin insisted she did. Ms. Dowling heard Ms. Bailey tell the defendant to “put the gun down” as he ran down the hallway shouting “where is she”. This is not what Ms. Bailey said. Moreover, Ms. Dowling agreed that when interviewed by the police about this matter, she did not assert, as she did in trial testimony, that the defendant was banging on the bedroom door while she hid in fear.
32Ms. Bailey’s statement to the police is consistent, in some respects, with her trial testimony.1 However, it is at odds with other statements she made to the police and inconsistent with other witnesses. Moreover, she could not recall many details
33Ms. Bailey told Sgt. Warkentin that the parties had been drinking all day and evening. That is not what she said at trial. If the statement to the officer is correct, this suggests that all parties, not just the defendant, were intoxicated. Ms. Bailey testified she was not intoxicated.
34Ms. Bailey told Sgt. Warkentin that the defendant pointed a shotgun at her and that this is what she later threw into the ditch. Mr. Fortino initially testified that the defendant had a shotgun. Similarly, Ms. Dowling testified that heard the distinctive sound of “clicking” from the basement and is certain it was a shotgun. The firearm recovered from the ditch is not a shotgun. It is a 22-caliber rifle. Ms. Bailey is an experienced hunter. Mr. Fortin and Ms. Dowling relied on their past experiences with a shotgun. All three witnesses, based on their own evidence, would know the difference between these firearms. The Crown argues that these witnesses are mistaken because events happened quickly. The Defence argues that the witnesses colluded after they drove away from the property. The Crown argument may be valid with respect to Ms. Dowling and Mr. Fortin. However, Ms. Bailey cannot have been mistaken about what kind of firearm she says was pointed at her face. This is puzzling. In any event, I have no doubt the parties discussed and agreed that it was a shotgun.
35There is another puzzling matter. As the parties were leaving, Ms. Bailey took Ms. Dowling’s phone from her. Surely, I can take judicial notice that a modern mobile phone is a prize possession with personal data, not to be easily parted with, especially with respect to teenagers. Ms. Dowling did not ask why she had been deprived of it.
RESULT
36I am confident that on the night in question, there was a confrontation between Ms. Bailey and the defendant inside the home, that spilled outside. One of them, likely the defendant, was in possession of a rifle. The events leading up to this are the subject of inconsistent, sometimes vague, evidence. Once Ms. Bailey and the defendant were outside, Mr. Fortin punched the defendant in the face, rendering him unconscious. The rifle was thrown into the ditch/trees by Ms. Bailey. It is said this was done so the defendant could not obtain it and cause harm. Yet, it was clear he was in no position to do anything, and the parties immediately left the scene without calling police to report the present charge or summoning help for the defendant. As they left, Ms. Bailey took away the young girl’s cell phone, thus preventing her from contacting her mother or others after these violent events. It is clear the adults were eager to depart and did not want the police involved. In all the circumstances this is, to say the least, strange.
37Whatever happened on the night in question, it has not been proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant pointed a firearm at Ms. Bailey. The charge is dismissed.
Released: January 29, 2026