Robert Craig Bottomley

The appellant, a long-time bank employee, appealed her conviction for defrauding her employer of over $1.9 million using false purchase orders directed to family-owned companies.

She also appealed the $2,000,000 restitution order imposed at sentencing.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding ample evidence to support the trial judge's findings and credibility assessments.

However, on consent of the Crown, the sentence appeal was allowed and the restitution order was struck out due to manifest errors in law.

The young person appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual assault.

The conviction appeal was based on a reasonable apprehension of bias, as the trial judge had accepted a guilty plea from a co-accused six weeks prior to the appellant's trial, during which facts implicating the appellant were read in.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reasonable apprehension of bias, noting that trial judges routinely disabuse their minds of potentially prejudicial information from prior proceedings.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the court found no error in the sentence imposed and noted the appellant had almost completed the secure custody portion.

The appellant, a young person, appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual assault.

He argued a reasonable apprehension of bias because the trial judge had accepted a guilty plea from his co-accused six weeks prior to his trial, during which facts implicating the appellant were read in.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, noting the high threshold for reasonable apprehension of bias and that trial judges routinely disabuse their minds of prior prejudicial information.

The sentence appeal was allowed in part to quash a sentence for breach of probation, as the appellant was not convicted of that charge, but the sentence for sexual assault was upheld.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence for six sexual assaults.

He argued that the authorizing judge lost jurisdiction to issue a DNA warrant by failing to give notice to his counsel.

The Court of Appeal held that even if there was a breach of section 8 of the Charter, the DNA evidence was admissible under section 24(2) because it would have been inevitably discovered and the breach was not serious.

The Court also found the trial judge's jury instructions adequate.

On the sentence appeal, the Court found the trial judge erred in principle by refusing two-for-one credit for pre-sentence custody solely for treatment purposes, but upheld the total sentence as fit given the severity of the offences.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for firearms offences.

Police found the appellant asleep behind the wheel of a running vehicle and opened the unlocked door, smelling alcohol and subsequently discovering two loaded handguns.

The appellant argued this violated his s. 8 Charter rights.

The Court of Appeal held that even if opening the door constituted a s. 8 breach, the evidence would not be excluded under s. 24(2) as the breach was not serious, the appellant had a diminished expectation of privacy, and the evidence was necessary for serious charges.

The appeal from conviction was dismissed.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the sentence was fit given the appellant's prior record and possession of loaded semi-automatic handguns.

The appellant appealed her custodial sentence, arguing for a conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error by the trial judge.

The trial judge's conclusion that public safety would be endangered by a conditional sentence was supported by the appellant's long record of offences involving dishonesty and theft, and the trial judge appropriately weighed mitigating factors including the appellant's fragile health.