Court of Appeal for Ontario

Citation: R. v. Persaud, 2011 ONCA 787

Date: 2011-12-14

Docket: C53498

Before: MacPherson, Juriansz and Epstein JJ.A.

Between:

Her Majesty the Queen

Respondents

and

Gary Persaud

Appellant

Counsel:

Robert B. Carew, for the appellant

Matthew Asma, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: December 12, 2011

On appeal from the conviction entered on May 9, 2010, and the sentence imposed on May 10, 2010, by Justice Michael Block of the Ontario Court of Justice.

ENDORSEMENT

[1] The appellant was convicted of a variety of credit card offences, obstruction of a peace officer and breach of probation. He received a global sentence of five years and four months imprisonment, less one year and 20 days of pre-trial custody credited on a 2:1 basis. The appellant appeals his convictions for the credit card offences and the sentence.

[2] The core of the conviction appeal is that the trial judge misapprehended some of the evidence and made unreasonable findings on the evidence.

[3] We do not accept these submissions. His submissions focus on isolated pieces of evidence, ignoring the overall context. On each count, the trial judge carefully reviewed the relevant evidence and reached entirely reasonable conclusions. The reality is that the circumstantial evidence relating to the credit cards found by the police was overwhelming.

[4] In our view, the sentence was fit. The appellant had a criminal record stretching back 23 years. Most of the record related to credit card offences. As the trial judge put it, “he is an intelligent, sophisticated, and determined recidivist.” We see no error in the trial judge’s global sentence nor in his reasoning on consecutive and concurrent periods in arriving at the global sentence.

[5] The appeal is dismissed.

“J.C. MacPherson J.A.”

“R.G. Juriansz J.A.”

“G.J. Epstein J.A.”