Court Information
Court: Ontario Court of Justice, Scarborough – Toronto Date: September 21, 2017
Parties
Between: Her Majesty the Queen
And: Norman Taylor
For the Crown: C. Stratos For the Defendant: K. Duncan
Heard: July 14, 17, 26; August 3 and 31, 2017
Reasons for Judgment
Justice Russell Silverstein
A. INTRODUCTION
[1] Norman Taylor is charged with the following Criminal Code offences:
- Threatening death to Lina Bao;
- Assaulting Lina Bao with a weapon;
- Threatening death to Peter Lazarou;
- and (5) Fail to comply with a recognizance (x2)
[2] The charges arise out of an incident that occurred on March 19, 2017 at a house at 80 Keyworth Trail in Scarborough, Ontario.
[3] The trial took place over five non-consecutive days. The Crown called two witnesses; Lina Bao, the alleged victim of the assault, and Peter Lazarou, the owner of the property and the boyfriend of Lina Bao. The Crown also filed several photographs, video and audio files that capture portions of the incident, including a recording of the 911 call placed by Ms. Bao during the incident.
[4] The defence called three witnesses; the accused and the main-floor adult residents of the house, Jessica Campbell and Vic Caster. The defence also introduced video capturing portions of the activity at 80 Keyworth that morning.
B. EVIDENCE
(a) Introduction
[5] Although the evidence of the Crown witnesses differed drastically from the evidence of the defence witnesses, I make the following findings based on the areas of common ground between the two sets of witnesses and the video and audio evidence.
[6] The accused was introduced to Lazarou by a man the accused met while serving a sentence in the penitentiary. The accused needed a place to live and Lazarou needed someone to help him renovate and manage the house at 80 Keyworth. An arrangement was struck between the accused and Lazarou whereby the accused eventually took up residence in the basement. Caster and Campbell moved into the main floor of the house with their children, and several other tenants lived in the basement with the accused. The accused assisted in the collection of rent from the various tenants, and otherwise acted as Lazarou's agent vis-a-vis the various tenants. The accused and Lazarou became close friends. However, for reasons that the evidence does not make clear, the relationship soured.
[7] On March 19, 2017, Lazarou and Bao went to the Keyworth house to deal with an issue concerning one of the basement tenants. The accused arrived at the Keyworth house somewhat later in the morning and let himself into the basement where he happened upon Bao and Lazarou. An altercation ensued. Just what occurred during this altercation is the issue in this case.
(b) The Evidence of Lina Bao and Peter Lazarou
[8] Lina Bao testified essentially as follows:
[9] Shortly after the accused arrived at 80 Keyworth an argument erupted between the accused and Lazarou. While the accused and Lazarou were arguing about various landlord and tenant issues she saw her dog, "Boobie", eating something on the kitchen floor that was not there when she arrived. She stooped to remove it from his mouth and asked the accused and Lazarou what it was that the dog was eating. The accused said it was rat poison. The accused denied putting it there and blamed Lazarou. Lazarou took exception to this and confronted the accused who grabbed Lazarou by the collar.
[10] Bao implored the men to stop fighting and said she was going to call 911 to help sort out who was responsible for distributing the poison. The accused yelled at her that if she called 911 he would kill her.
[11] As Bao was trying to unlock her cell phone to call 911 the accused grabbed her hair from behind and began to twist her head about while saying "put down your phone, you fucking old lady". The accused then took a screwdriver and began sliding it up and down her arms, hands and trunk leaving her with marks on her arms, wrists and hands, and tears to the down vest she was wearing at the time. Some of her hair was pulled out by the accused.
[12] Lazarou intervened and Bao was able to call 911. The accused retreated to the side door, which was up some stairs from the basement. Lazarou succeeded in locking him out for a time but the accused re-entered the basement and tried to assault Bao as Lazarou stood between them on the stairs. Bao was still on the phone with the 911 operator.
[13] While she was on the phone to 911 the accused banged on the side door and continued to threaten her and Lazarou. At some point, Vic Castor joined the accused at the side door and threatened to kill her through the door.
[14] The police attended soon thereafter and retrieved a yellow handled screwdriver and took photographs of Bao's injuries.
[15] Peter Lazarou, a retired T.T.C. operator testified about the history of his relationship with the accused and his property at 80 Keyworth Trail and about the altercation on March 19, 2017. The essentials of his testimony are as follows:
[16] Lazarou was asked by a friend to help the accused upon the release of the accused from prison. Lazarou agreed and entered into an arrangement with the accused whereby the accused helped with renovations and lived at the property rent-free in exchange. As of November 2015 the accused lived downstairs. They became close friends but the relationship soured when Lazarou became critical of Taylor's marijuana trafficking and use. Lazarou thus evicted the accused. The accused looked for another place to live, with the assistance of Lazarou.
[17] On March 19, 2017, Lazarou and Bao went to the property to deal with another basement tenant. The accused arrived. Neither Lazarou nor Bao were expecting him. The accused said he was there to pick up some marijuana plants. He was angry and started yelling at Lazarou to the effect that Lazarou had illegally charged the tenants a security deposit.
[18] Lazarou called his paralegal for advice. While on the phone he saw the accused throw something in the direction of Bao's dogs. Bao asked what it was and the accused said that it was rat poison and that Lazarou had put it there. As Lazarou approached the accused the accused grabbed him by the collar. The accused had a yellow handled screwdriver in his hand. Lazarou succeeded in freeing himself as Bao reached for her phone to call 911. When the accused heard what Bao was doing he yelled to Lazarou to "get a hold of your old lady before I come and kill you both."
[19] The accused went after Bao, grabbing her by the hair, pulling and shaking her head. With the screwdriver in his right hand the accused began swinging the screwdriver in the direction of the phone, seemingly trying to knock it out of Bao's hand. Lazarou succeeded in wrestling the accused off Bao and in the direction of the side door. As the accused was leaving he told Bao and Lazarou that if Bao called the cops they were both dead. Just before leaving the basement the accused again threatened to "smash" Lazarou. At some point during the altercation Lazarou managed to use his cell phone to record a small snippet of the altercation.
[20] Bao continued her call to 911 while the accused remained outside the back door yelling and threatening to kill her and Lazarou.
[21] The police arrived shortly thereafter and photographed Bao's injuries.
[22] Cross-examination of Bao and Lazarou gave rise to the following salient evidence:
[23] Bao was unemployed at the time of the incident and had been for several months.
[24] Bao gave a statement to the police when they arrived. She testified that she tried to tell the police everything that had occurred. She did not, however, remember what she said that day. When certain allegedly inconsistent assertions were put to her as having been made to the police that day, Bao did not admit that she had made them and no evidence was called to prove that she did indeed make them. Much the same can be said for Lazarou, who also spoke to the police upon their arrival. He testified that he was shown police notes of his statement before trial but was unable to read them. Again, certain allegedly inconsistent assertions were put to him, but were not proved as having indeed been made by him.
[25] When confronted with the fact that she told the 911 operator that the accused had put his hands around her neck and that she had said nothing of the sort in her testimony in chief, Bao said that whatever she told the 911 operator was the truth and that the accused might have put his hands around her neck while pulling her hair.
[26] With respect to her initial response to the 911 operator that the accused did not have a weapon, Bao explained that because her English is not that good, she did not realize that a screwdriver might fit the definition of a weapon.
[27] In the course of landlord and tenant proceedings Lazarou filed a document wherein he claimed that Vic Caster had also threatened to kill him and Bao on March 19, 2017. While it was not part of his testimony in chief, he adopted the statement as true.
[28] Lazarou had tried to deliver videos from his surveillance cameras to the police who showed no interest in them until one week before the trial. This evidence was not contradicted.
(c) The Videos, the Photographs and the Audio Evidence
[29] The video and audio evidence, some presented by the Crown, some by the defence, provides some significant insight into what occurred the morning of March 19, 2017. Yet it presents some challenges. Apart from the 911 call, the videos and audio are incomplete, either because they do not capture the entire event, or because some do not capture sound.
[30] I will refer to the media files again below in my analysis of the evidence.
(d) The Defence Evidence
[31] Mr. Taylor testified and denied assaulting and threatening the complainants. His testimony was essentially as follows:
[32] The accused is 52 years old. He was introduced to Lazarou by a fellow penitentiary inmate. The accused took up residence at 80 Keyworth and helped Lazarou manage the house and its tenants. There was a rat problem and Lazarou had distributed rat poison everywhere. His relationship with Lazarou was good until Lazarou started putting pressure on him to lie to the police in connection with his landlord-tenant disputes.
[33] The accused decided to move out and tried to secure new housing using false employment letters supplied to him by Lazarou.
[34] On the morning in question the accused went to Keyworth to rescue his marijuana plant, fearing the basement door had been left open. When he arrived he went into the basement and saw Lazarou, Bao and two of their dogs. Not expecting to see them, he was frightened. He and Lazarou began to discuss the grievance of one of the tenants regarding a security deposit. Lazarou got angry at the accused for siding with the tenant. He then saw Bao calling 911 regarding the suspected poison that Boobie was ingesting. When Bao said she suspected the accused of poisoning the dog he told them that he "should smash them" and left the premises. He never re-entered the basement. Rather, he waited outside. Caster eventually joined him outside the back door and yelled at Bao and Lazarou for "freaking out" his kids.
[35] The accused denied assaulting or threatening Bao or Lazarou, and added that if he had been of a mind to assault Bao he would not have scratched her with a screwdriver, but would have smashed her head in.
[36] The accused admitted the details of his criminal record which was made an exhibit. It contains many entries, beginning in 1982 and culminating in 2013, for numerous offences of dishonesty, disregard for the administration of justice and violence. Needless to say, it is relevant only to his credibility as a witness at this trial.
[37] The salient details of the cross-examination of the accused are as follows:
[38] The accused admitted to growing several plants on the premises. He claimed, however that they were hemp, not marijuana. He denied that he had planted them hoping they were marijuana.
[39] He denied being upset that Bao was calling 911, even though he had decided after his last release from prison that he must never again go back to jail. He admitted to saying that he ought to "smash them" but said that this was largely because they were throwing his friendship "out the window".
[40] When asked how Bao received her injuries he opined that she and Lazarou had inflicted them.
[41] Both Jessica Campbell and Vic Caster testified for the defence.
[42] Campbell and Caster occupied the main floor of the house with their three children. They had installed motion sensitive cameras in their residence which captured some of the incident, in particular their reaction to the brouhaha that they heard going on downstairs on March 19, 2017.
[43] Campbell and Caster were minding their own business when they heard yelling downstairs and outside, which included the accused yelling "fuck you, you're a goof" and "open the fucking door". Caster was playing video games at the time and jumped off his bed upon hearing screaming. He activated his cell phone camera which he carried with him to the back door where he joined the accused in yelling at Lazarou and Bao through the closed side door. Caster did not threaten to kill Bao or Lazarou.
[44] Much of their testimony focused on recounting Lazarou's dishonest behaviour in his role as their landlord.
[45] Campbell does not have a criminal record. Caster's criminal record was made an exhibit. He has numerous convictions going back to 1992 for crimes of dishonesty, firearms, and drugs.
C. ANALYSIS
(a) Introduction
[46] Counsel for the defence, Ms. Duncan, argues that the evidence of the accused, when considered in the context of all the evidence, raises at least a reasonable doubt that the accused inflicted the injuries to Bao and threatened to kill Bao and Lazarou. She suggests that Bao and Lazarou, in a bid to frame the accused, inflicted the injuries to Bao and her clothing and called 911 to make these false allegations against the accused. She agrees that this scenario, and the guilt of the accused, are the only two possible scenarios that explain the injuries. She argues that as long as the evidence leaves the self-inflicted injury scenario as a reasonable possibility, the accused must be found not guilty. I agree with that proposed approach to the evidence.
(b) Discussion
[47] While I accept some of the testimony of the accused as concerns his background and the history of his relationship with Lazarou and Bao, I do not believe the evidence of the accused as concerns the alleged offences, nor does his testimony, looked at alone or in the context of the rest of the evidence in the trial, raise a reasonable doubt in my mind. As far as the balance of the evidence is concerned, I find that it makes out the Crown's case beyond a reasonable doubt.
[48] The accused's testimony on the material issues is either contradicted by objective evidence, such as the videos and audios, or, simply does not accord with common sense. Moreover, his credibility is significantly impaired by his criminal record.
[49] I find that Bao and Lazarou had no idea that the accused was coming over to the house on the morning in question. The notion that they would, or could, concoct and execute a plan to inflict injuries on Bao and then lie to the 911 operator is farfetched and unreasonable. The 911 call, and in particular Bao's cries of fear captured on the recording, sound very spontaneous. While Bao alleges that Caster threatened to kill her, and this is not borne out on the Caster audio, in Bao's excited state I can understand how she might perceive Caster's loud, angry threat to "do something" as a threat to kill her. Likewise, even though Bao, in her testimony in chief, did not allege that the accused put his hands around her neck, I can understand why, in the heat of the moment, she might have perceived and described the hair pulling incident as such in her frantic call to 911.
[50] Lazarou also claimed that Caster had threatened death at the side door. As alluded to above, the Caster audio recording, when synched with the video, demonstrates that while Caster was extremely angry and threatening in his tone, Caster did not threaten to kill anyone. Whether this discrepancy is as a result of Lazarou's excited state on March 19, 2017, or a conscious exaggeration, I find that it does not undermine Lazarou's testimony on the material matters in this trial, which is corroborated by Bao's relatively straightforward testimony and by the video and audio record.
[51] Generally speaking, the video evidence supports the testimony of Bao and Lazarou and contradicts the evidence of the accused. The video shows that the accused did indeed go into the basement twice, as testified to by the complainants and contrary to the evidence of the accused. And while the Court only had access to the audio recorded by Caster that partially overlaps the video depicting the accused pacing and banging on the side door, the video makes clear that the accused was extraordinarily angry at Bao and Lazarou, as testified to by them. The brief Lazarou recording further supports this finding.
[52] The testimony of the accused as concerns his marijuana growing efforts was evasive and preposterous. It damaged his general credibility to a significant degree.
D. CONCLUSION
[53] The testimony of Bao and Lazarou as to the incident in the basement, and in particular, the assault and threatening is generally mutually supportive, supported by other objective evidence, and is not undermined on any material issue by evidence offered by the defence. I also find that their testimony as concerns the incident in the basement was given in a consistent, frank and focused manner. As stated above, any inconsistencies or aberrations in their testimony were relatively minor or immaterial.
[54] In the result, I find the accused guilty of the threatening and assault counts. Seeing as the accused was bound by a recognizance at the time the offences were committed, I also find him guilty of the two counts of breach of that recognizance.
Released on September 21, 2017
Justice Russell Silverstein