Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2017-09-01 Docket: C62468

Judges: Tulloch, Lauwers and Brown JJ.A.

Between

Her Majesty the Queen Respondent

and

Cherie Lynn Pammett Appellant

Counsel

Cherie Lynn Pammett, Acting in person Andrew Hotke, Counsel for the Respondent Andrew Faith, Duty Counsel

Heard and released orally: June 5, 2017

On appeal from the sentence imposed on April 18, 2016 by Justice L.M. Cameron of the Ontario Court of Justice.

Reasons for Decision

[1] This appeal is dismissed for the following reasons: The appellant was convicted of contempt for her refusal to testify at the trial proceedings in which her father was being tried for the offence of perjury. The father's trial involved allegations of him lying under oath at a previous trial of the appellant's fiancée, where the fiancée was on trial for a number of offences involving violence.

[2] Following the appellant's conviction, she was sentenced to one-year imprisonment, consecutive to time she was already serving. The previous charges for which she was incarcerated were convictions for perjury which related to testimony she gave at an earlier trial involving her fiancée, as well as other unrelated offences.

[3] The appellant now seeks to appeal her sentence on the contempt charge.

[4] Duty Counsel, on behalf of the appellant, submits that the sentence imposed by the trial judge was excessive in the circumstances, as the appellant was compelled to testify against her own father. This fact, argues the duty counsel, should be considered a mitigating factor.

[5] Duty Counsel also argues that the appellant was essentially being punished twice for the same offence. Since the appellant was already serving a sentence for perjury with respect to the same set of facts related to her fiancée's earlier trial, then this court should intervene and convert the consecutive sentence into a concurrent sentence. This, argues Duty Counsel, would reduce the total sentence by 6 months.

[6] We see no merit to this argument. In the circumstances, we are not persuaded that the sentence is unfit. While leave to appeal sentence is granted, the sentence appeal is dismissed.

M. Tulloch J.A. P. Lauwers J.A. David Brown J.A.