Court File and Parties

CITATION: R. v. Martin, 2009 ONCA 62

DATE: 20090123

DOCKET: C44142

COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

Laskin, Gillese and Rouleau JJ.A.

BETWEEN

Her Majesty the Queen

Respondent

and

Steven Charles Martin

Appellant

Counsel:

William J. Parker, Q.C., for the appellant

Deborah Calderwood, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: January 14, 2009

On appeal from the sentence imposed by Justice S.S. Seppi of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting with a jury, on August 19, 2005.

ENDORSEMENT

[1] Mr. Martin was convicted of 14 offences of domestic abuse against his wife. He was sentenced to 8½ years in custody in addition to 22 months credit for pre-trial custody, an effective sentence of 10 years 4 months. He appeals his sentence.

[2] Mr. Martin’s main submission is that the sentence is beyond an acceptable range and that an appropriate range is 5 to 7 years. Mr. Martin is now 38 years old and we acknowledge that for him a 10-year sentence is a substantial sentence. Nonetheless, in the absence of any significant mitigating considerations and the presence of several aggravating considerations, we are not persuaded that the sentence he received is unfit. These aggravating considerations include the following.

• The offences amounted to eight discrete incidents of spousal abuse over an extended period of time.

• Many of the offences were characterized by excessive violence.

• Mr. Martin committed the first incident, an incident of choking, which was life threatening, when he was on probation for a previous assault against his wife.

• One of these violent incidents was witnessed by the children, and indeed, the daughter intervened to protect her mother from further harm.

• The final incident occurred while Mr. Martin was on bail. Not only did he breach the no-contact provision of his bail, he cut the phone line before breaking and entering into the home.

[3] Overall, as the trial judge said, Mr. Martin’s conduct “emotionally and physically battered his wife into submission.” That conduct justified the sentence Mr. Martin received.

[4] Accordingly, although leave to appeal sentence is granted, the sentence appeal is dismissed.

“John Laskin J.A.”

“Eileen E. Gillese J.A.”

“Paul Rouleau J.A.”