Roger Anthony Sydney Pinnock

The appellant was convicted of historical sexual offences against his younger sister, younger brother, and a childhood friend, receiving a total sentence of five years.

On appeal, he argued that proceeding with the charges 15 years after an initial police decision not to charge was an abuse of process, and challenged evidentiary rulings including the admission of similar fact evidence and the exclusion of s. 276 evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no abuse of process and upholding the trial judge's evidentiary rulings.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed; the court found the trial judge erred by not treating the appellant's early admissions as mitigating and by failing to consider his youth at the time of the offences.

The total sentence was reduced to three and a half years, and a s. 161 prohibition order was deleted.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second-degree murder, arguing that a statement he made to police should have been excluded at trial.

Although the statement was made after the appellant had consulted with counsel, it followed a 14-hour interrogation process during which his s. 10(b) Charter rights were repeatedly breached.

The Court of Appeal found that the statement was temporally and contextually connected to the prior breaches, and was therefore obtained in a manner that infringed the Charter.

Concluding that the admission of this conscriptive evidence would render the trial unfair and bring the administration of justice into disrepute, the Court allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and ordered a new trial.

The appellant, a paralegal and private investigator, was convicted of attempting to obstruct justice after contacting a complainant in a domestic assault case where his client was bound by a non-communication order.

He appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge erred by failing to give a Vetrovec warning regarding the complainant's testimony, failing to properly instruct the jury on the defence theory, and giving vague instructions on the actus reus.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's exercise of discretion regarding the Vetrovec warning, and concluding the jury instructions were full and accurate.

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 for unlawful confinement, seeking to introduce fresh evidence consisting of a divorce petition containing a claim by the complainant for the matrimonial home.

The appellant argued this evidence contradicted the complainant's trial testimony and affected her credibility.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the proposed fresh evidence did not satisfy the Palmer criteria for admissibility, as it could have been available at trial with due diligence and would not have affected the result.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board, arguing that a doctor had doubts about his diagnosis of a major mental illness.

The Court of Appeal found that the doctor did not dispute the diagnosis and believed discharge was inappropriate due to the risk of harm presented by the appellant.

The Court held that the Board's decision was reasonable, supported by evidence, and represented the least onerous and restrictive disposition.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant pleaded guilty to multiple property-related offences, including break and enters.

At trial, there was a joint submission for a three-year sentence, but the trial judge rejected it and imposed a five-year sentence.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the proposed three-year sentence was within the appropriate range, given the appellant's youth, lack of prior lengthy sentences, and efforts to overcome addiction.

The appeal was allowed, and the sentence was varied to three years by making certain sentences concurrent.

The appellant was convicted of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and public mischief after allegedly staging a break-in at his golf shop to collect insurance proceeds.

During the investigation, a police officer fabricated a witness statement to induce a confession from a co-conspirator.

The trial judge permitted the Crown to cross-examine the co-conspirator on his resulting statements and dismissed the appellant's application for a stay of proceedings based on abuse of process.

The Court of Appeal held that the fabricated statement constituted a forged document and an abuse of process.

The appeal was allowed, convictions set aside, and a new trial ordered with the tainted evidence excluded.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in admitting evidence of his false statements to police, bad character evidence, and a hearsay statement, as well as in admitting evidence from a warrantless search of his truck.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge misdirected the jury on how to use the false statements as evidence of fabrication, improperly admitted highly prejudicial bad character evidence without a limiting instruction, and erred in admitting the hearsay statement.

Although the warrantless search violated section 8 of the Charter, the evidence was admissible under section 24(2).

However, the cumulative effect of the other errors required a new trial.

The appellant appealed his convictions for robbery and wearing a face mask.

He argued that the trial judge erred by refusing to declare a mistrial following the Crown's opening address, that his s. 10(b) Charter rights were violated, that the jury instructions on reasonable doubt were flawed, and that the verdicts were unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that curative instructions remedied any prejudice from the opening address, the appellant had waived his right to counsel, the jury instructions on reasonable doubt were sufficient when read as a whole, and there was ample evidence to support the convictions.

A criminal lawyer appealed a contempt conviction arising from his failure to appear with his client at a peremptory disposition hearing.

The Court of Appeal held that counsel non-appearance is not per se criminal contempt and that the fault element requires at least indifference to obligations to the court and client.

The trial judge erred by cutting off evidence about arrangements made for an associate to attend and by relying on prior non-appearances by the lawyer and others in his firm without proper notice.

The conviction was quashed and an acquittal entered because, on the uncontested affidavit record, the conduct did not amount to criminal contempt.

The appellants challenged robbery and firearms convictions arising from a violent home invasion robbery involving multiple victims, police surveillance, intercepted communications, and a getaway vehicle stop.

The Court of Appeal rejected all conviction grounds, holding that any errors in the Corbett rulings, party liability instruction, identification charge, co-conspirator instruction, and post-offence conduct instruction either did not occur or caused no prejudice.

The court found the evidence against both appellants strong, including surveillance, wiretap evidence, and surrounding circumstantial evidence.

On sentence, however, the court found unwarranted disparity with a co-accused’s sentence and held that one appellant should have received enhanced credit for pretrial custody.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted and the sentences were reduced to 11 years and 10 years respectively.

The Crown appealed a sentence imposed after convictions for two counts of sexual assault, arguing that the trial judge unlawfully combined an intermittent custodial term with a conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal held that s. 732(1) permits intermittent imprisonment only for sentences of 90 days or less, and that s. 742.1 requires the sentence to be served in the community rather than partly in custody and partly in the community.

Relying on the statutory wording and appellate authority, the court concluded that the blended sentence was illegal.

Leave to appeal was granted, the appeal allowed, and the weekend jail condition deleted.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference.

The trial judge had erred by relying on the contents of the complainant's diary as corroboration of her testimony, even though the diary was not introduced into evidence.

The Court of Appeal applied the curative proviso under s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code to uphold the convictions.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the Court of Appeal's application of the proviso.

The appellant appealed his conviction for theft under s. 322 of the Criminal Code.

The appellant had taken possession of goods after making a down payment with a cheque he knew would be dishonoured.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the Ontario Court of Appeal that the appellant was properly convicted of theft.