Court of Appeal for Ontario

Citation: R. v. Mohammad, 2016 ONCA 297

Date: 2016-04-25

Docket: C58841

Judges: Feldman, Simmons and Pepall JJ.A.

Between:

Her Majesty the Queen, Respondent

and

Khaleel Mohammad, Appellant

Counsel:

Khaleel Mohammad, in person

Leslie Paine, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: April 6, 2016

On appeal from the sentence imposed on December 13, 2015 by Justice John MacDonald of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting without a jury.

Endorsement

[1] The appellant seeks leave to appeal a global sentence of 6 years, 7.5 months for break and enter with an intent, robbery, assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, mischief under, and uttering death threats. He makes two submissions: 1. that the trial judge erred in his attribution of the 7.5 months of presentence custody, and 2. that the global sentence of 6 years should be reduced to 5 years.

[2] Crown counsel has acknowledged that there may have been confusion on the part of the trial judge regarding the Crown’s position on whether the 6 year sentence was intended to be in addition to or after credit for the presentence custody. Nevertheless, the trial judge clearly believed that the Crown sought 6 years, plus presentence custody and he also believed that that sentence was fit and required in the circumstances.

[3] From our reading of the record, it appears that the trial judge did misunderstand the Crown’s position. In our view, it was appropriate to reduce the global sentence of 6 years by the presentence custody, in order to make the credit of the presentence custody a meaningful one.

[4] We commend the appellant for his clear progress and determination in custody to qualify himself for legitimate work on his release. However, we see no basis to interfere with the 6 year global sentence imposed by the trial judge for these extremely serious crimes. In the result, leave to appeal sentence is granted, the sentence is modified to 6 years less credit of 7.5 months for pretrial custody.

“K. Feldman J.A.”

“J. Simmons J.A.”

“S.E. Pepell J.A.”