Pardeep Kaur

The accused was charged with two counts of sexual assault against a refugee claimant with whom she was in an intimate relationship while both resided at a shelter in Toronto.

The Crown alleged two separate incidents of sexual assault in April 2022.

The accused denied the first incident and characterized the second as a consensual joke.

The court found the complainant to be a credible and reliable witness, applying a trauma-informed approach to assess inconsistencies in their testimony.

The court rejected the accused's reliance on "implied consent" as a defence and found the touching to be sexual in nature.

The accused was convicted on both counts.

The Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the Crown's application for an assessment of criminal responsibility regarding Deeva John, who had entered guilty pleas to multiple assault-related charges.

The court found that although Ms. John suffers from Cluster B personality disorder traits, there were no reasonable grounds to doubt her capacity under section 16 of the Criminal Code to appreciate the nature and quality of her conduct or to know that it was wrong at the time of the offences.

The decision emphasized that the Crown failed to establish the lower threshold of "reasonable grounds to doubt" criminal responsibility due to mental disorder, as the evidence showed Ms. John’s conduct was purposeful and responsive to her environment rather than indicative of incapacity.

The accused, Mireille Pardieu, was charged with manslaughter after restraining Fadumo Hassan, who subsequently died due to complications of chest compression exacerbated by cocaine and ethanol intoxication.

The defense argued self-defence under section 34 of the Criminal Code.

The Crown conceded an air of reality to self-defence but argued the force used was disproportionate, specifically the duration of restraint after the victim stopped resisting.

The court found Ms. Pardieu's actions reasonable, noting her belief of ongoing threat and the unknown contributing factors of the victim's drug and alcohol use, which a reasonable person would not have known would make the restraint fatal.

The Crown failed to disprove self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt.

The accused, Airgama Abaya, brought a s. 11(b) Charter application for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay in his impaired driving trial.

The total delay from the information being sworn (July 7, 2022) to the completion of evidence and submissions (March 27, 2024) was 20 months and 20 days.

After deducting 32 days of defence-conceded delay, the net delay was 19 months and 18 days, exceeding the 18-month presumptive ceiling for the Ontario Court of Justice set by R. v. Jordan.

The Crown failed to establish exceptional circumstances to justify the delay.

The court found no discrete events or case complexity to qualify as exceptional circumstances, and declined to consider general COVID-19 ripple effects or judge/staff shortages without specific evidence and argument.

Consequently, the court found a breach of s. 11(b) of the Charter and imposed a stay of proceedings under s. 24(1).

This judgment concerns a breach hearing for Arber Krasniqi's one-year conditional sentence order (CSO).

Krasniqi was found to have breached his curfew condition less than two months into the CSO, having been found outside his residence at 1:45 AM and involved in the theft of a vehicle, while also possessing a "key programmer." The court found the breach to be flagrant and indicative of further criminal offending.

Despite arguments for mitigating factors and electronic monitoring, the court determined that the presumption of reincarceration applied due to the severity of the breach and the offender's poor response to community supervision.

The conditional sentence order was terminated, and the offender was committed to custody for the remaining 255 days of his sentence.

In a preliminary inquiry concerning six bank robberies, the Crown sought to adduce similar fact evidence to prove identity.

The defence conceded the admissibility for the last four robberies but argued against the first two due to differences in modus operandi.

The court applied the R. v. Handy test, finding that despite some dissimilarities, the cumulative effect of numerous significant similarities across all six incidents, including proximity in time and place, suspect description, attire, and distinctive handwritten notes, established the objective improbability of coincidence.

The court granted the Crown's application, allowing the similar fact evidence for identity on all counts, noting that the preliminary inquiry context lessened potential prejudice.