COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

CITATION: R. v. Sergeant, 2015 ONCA 345

DATE: 20150513

DOCKET: C57688

Juriansz, Rouleau and Hourigan JJ.A.

BETWEEN

Her Majesty the Queen

Respondent

and

Raynon Sergeant

Appellant

Sam Goldstein, for the appellant

Gavin MacDonald, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: May 7, 2015

On appeal from the conviction entered on January 10, 2012 by Justice Anne M. Molloy of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting without a jury.

ENDORSEMENT

[1] The appellant appeals his conviction for extortion. The trial judge found that he approached the complainant on the street and told her that if she did not pay $3,000 to replace a gun she would be shot.

[2] We do not agree with the appellant’s contention that the trial judge’s reasons are inadequate to enable him to reasonably understand why he was convicted. The appellant focuses on the trial judge’s remark that “[the appellant] just simply did not appear to me to be telling the truth”. The trial judge’s reasons must be read as a whole and on reading them as a whole, it is clear that she provided a detailed assessment of the evidence and extensive reasons for why she believed the evidence of the complainant and rejected that of the appellant.

[3] While initially putting forward that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence, appellant’s counsel submitted that the trial judge erred by making the inference that the relationship between the appellant and the complainant’s former boyfriend was so close that the appellant would have known about the former boyfriend’s criminality, which knowledge he denied under oath.

[4] Inferences from the facts were the trial judge’s to make. Here in our view, the inference the trial judge made is supported by the evidence of the history of the appellant’s relationship with the former boyfriend. The trial judge was entitled to conclude that the appellant’s professed ignorance of the former boyfriend’s criminality undermined the appellant’s credibility.

[5] Nor are we persuaded there is any misapplication of the principles of R v W.D. The trial judge instructed herself on those principles and explicitly stated that she must avoid turning her analysis into a credibility contest between the only two witnesses in the case. It is clear that she understood the burden of proof and that she correctly applied it.

[6] The appeal is dismissed.

“R.G. Juriansz J.A.”

“Paul Rouleau J.A.”

“C.W. Hourigan J.A.”