Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2017-07-20 Docket: C62830

Panel: Hoy A.C.J.O., Simmons and Brown JJ.A.

Between

Her Majesty the Queen Respondent

and

Richard Gamble Appellant

Counsel

For the Appellant: Enzo Rondinelli Richard Gamble, appearing in person

For the Respondent: Michael Bernstein

Hearing and Appeal

Heard: July 13, 2017

On appeal from the sentence imposed by Justice R.J. Harper, of the Superior Court of Justice, dated October 11, 2016.

Appeal Book Endorsement

[1] The trial judge imposed a sentence of 13 years' incarceration, after credit for pre-sentence custody. Possibly inadvertently, the trial judge imposed a sentence that exceeded the Crown's position by two years without providing the parties with an opportunity to make further submissions.

[2] This was an error in principle. However, in our view, the sentence imposed by the trial judge was entirely fit, given the circumstances of the offence and the offender reviewed in the trial judge's reasons for sentence.

[3] The sentence the trial judge imposed was based on that proposed by the Crown, before factoring in the principles of proportionality and totality. In this case, those principles did not warrant a reduction from the starting number proposed by the Crown.

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