DATE: 20031009

DOCKET: C37218

COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

RE:

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN (Respondent) – and – ANASTASIOS POLITIDAS (Applicant) (Appellant)

BEFORE:

WEILER, MacPHERSON and CRONK JJ.A.

COUNSEL:

Christopher D. Hicks

for the appellant

Alison Hurst

for the respondent

HEARD & ENDORSED:

October 8, 2003

On appeal from the conviction imposed by Justice Richard G. Byers of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting without a jury, dated April 18, 2001, and the sentence imposed by Justice Byers dated May 24, 2001.

A P P E A L B O O K E N D O R S E M E N T

[1] The appellant asserts that he did not understand the potential consequences of his guilty pleas until he saw and reviewed the complainant’s victim impact statement with the result that the trial judge erred by declining to allow him to withdraw his pleas. In our view, the trial judge did not err.

[2] The appellant bears the onus of proving that his pleas were invalid. There is no evidence on the record before us that the appellant did not appreciate the nature of the charges or the fact that he would be sentenced in respect to those charges. The fact that the appellant may have wished, after his pleas, to take issue with some of the comments made in the complainant’s victim impact statement that were unrelated to the essential elements of the offence is not a ground to set aside the pleas.

[3] Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed.