Pierre Bonsu

The accused, Brenda Andrew, pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 against her former employer, Vertechs Design Inc., involving approximately $210,000.

The fraud was committed through unauthorized use of a corporate credit card and manipulation of the payroll system, spanning nearly three years.

Andrew made substantially full restitution.

The Crown sought a three-year penitentiary sentence, while the defence sought a conditional sentence.

The court considered Andrew's extensive criminal record for similar dishonesty offences, the breach of trust, the sophistication and duration of the fraud, and the impact on the vulnerable small business.

Despite significant mitigation from the guilty plea and restitution, the court found a conditional sentence inappropriate due to the need for specific and general deterrence, sentencing Andrew to two years less a day in prison and imposing a lifetime prohibition on employment involving financial authority over others.

The applicant, Brenda Andrew, brought a s. 11(b) Charter application alleging a violation of her right to trial within a reasonable time.

The total delay was 43 months, exceeding the 30-month presumptive ceiling from R. v. Jordan.

The court identified nine months of "defence delay" attributable to the applicant's repeated requests for time to retain counsel and to raise restitution funds for a failed resolution agreement.

This reduced the net delay for Jordan purposes to 34 months.

The Crown argued that the remaining delay beyond the ceiling was due to the COVID-19 pandemic backlog, an "exceptional circumstance." The court found that approximately ten months of the delay in setting the trial date was attributable to the pandemic backlog, bringing the net delay to 24 months, which is below the Jordan ceiling.

The application was dismissed.