ONTARIO

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

CITATION: R. v. Hunter, 2026 ONSC 1529

COURT FILE NO.: CR-24-00000112-0000 (Kingston)

DATE: 2026Mar23

BETWEEN:

HIS MAJESTY THE KING

– and –

VINCENT HUNTER

Defendant

J. Stuart, for the Crown

E. Chan and W. Hume, for the Defendant

HEARD at Kingston: October 6, 7, 8, 9 and 30, 2025

THE PUBLICATION, BROADCAST OR TRANSMISSION OF ANY INFORMATION THAT COULD IDENTIFY THE COMPLAINANTS OR A WITNESS IN THIS PROCEEDING IS RESTRICTED PURSUANT TO SECTION 486.4 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA.

carey j.

reasons for DECISION

1Mr. Hunter was charged on a preferred indictment that between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017 that, for a sexual purpose, he touched the body of a person under the age of sixteen years, namely M.K. and thereby committing an offence contrary to section 151 of the Criminal Code of Canada.,

2On October 6, 2025, he entered a plea of not guilty and the trial proceeded with the Crown calling evidence from M.K.’s aunt, followed by M.K., then her mother and finally, Officer Mariah Bowers who took the initial report that led to the investigation of and ultimately, the charge against Mr. Hunter.

3Mr. Hunter gave evidence in his defence and called one witness.

4The trial was heard October 6 – 10, 2025 and upon completion of the evidence was remanded to October 30 for submissions. December 17th was set for a decision, but the matter was further remanded for decision to January 15, 2026. On that date, the defendant was acquitted by me based on his guilt not being proven beyond a reasonable doubt, with full written reasons to follow. These are those reasons.

5The complainant who was 16 years old when she testified, relates that when she was about 13, she had her first memory of being sexually assaulted at a much younger age, and the memories were accompanied by a memory of the accused’s face. She first revealed some of these memories after being confronted by her aunt about recent uncharacteristic misbehaviour including vaping and other issues at the school she attended.

6Close to the trial, she remembered a further incident in a vehicle driven by the defendant when they were returning from a trip to McDonald’s where the defendant bought her a hamburger. Her memory was assisted by a photo in the possession of her mother that showed her with a hamburger in the family apartment. She described five incidents in total. In summary, they are, not necessarily in order, an allegation that the defendant touched her “little ball thing” in a shed at his cottage. She said that she was touched by Mr. Hunter in her vagina on two occasions, one in Mr. Hunter’s apartment and secondly, in his car. Next, she alleged that the defendant licked her vagina at his apartment, she also alleged that Mr. Hunter took her hand, aggressively forcing it down onto his penis, also at his apartment. The final allegation was that Mr. Hunter had vaginal intercourse with the complainant at her apartment. As counsel for the defendant has summarized, these are sexual acts that allegedly happened six times at three different places.

7The complainant’s aunt gave evidence corroborating the circumstances of her niece’s disclosure. Her mother corroborated the trip to the cottage and times when she said the defendant would look after her daughter when she was not home.

8After the closing of the Crown’s evidence, the defendant called another tenant of his building. She said she was home much of the time during the relevant period and never saw the defendant alone with the complainant. Testifying in his defence, Mr. Hunter said he never spent any time alone with the complainant. He said he avoided being around her alone because her mother had asked him shortly after meeting him if he was a registered sex offender. He was upset by the question and denied that he was such. He denied all the allegations made against him.

9He was, at times, argumentative and angry when giving his evidence. He did not waiver from his testimony in extensive cross examination by the Crown.

Analysis

10As in most sexual assault related trials, central to the Crown’s case is the credibility and reliability of the complainant. The complainant gave her evidence in a manner that did not cause me to reject her evidence as fabricated or deliberately false. There were some inconsistencies in her evidence in chief and cross examination, however, not such as to be unexpected given the age of the witness and the time that has passed since she first had a flashback, a “sense of recollection” and her first speaking about these “memories” as they have been referred to here in this trial. The reliability of her recollections is a real issue.

11Defence counsel relies on the case of R. v. B.B., 2023 ONSC 396, a decision of J. Dawe J., (as he then was) of the Superior Court of Justice. Justice Dawe was dealing with a case of historic sexual assault allegations based on memories that came to the complainant years after the time frame of the alleged incidents. As in the case before me, there was no contemporaneous corroboration of the incidents. As noted by Dawe J. at paragraph 82 of his reasons, “judges and jurors who rely on their own "common sense" may have great difficulty accurately assessing the likelihood that a witness who honestly believes in the reality of his or her "recovered memory" might be wrong about this.” Further, at paragraph 89 of the judgment, Dawe J. stresses the following:

The basic requirement in criminal cases that the Crown must prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt always requires inculpatory evidence to be carefully examined. The possibility that witnesses who purport to be remembering distant events may not be doing so accurately always needs to be given serious consideration, even when the witnesses claim to have held their memory continuously in their minds since the time of the remembered events.

12I further note the comments of Justice Rosenberg in a 1995 article written shortly before his appointment to the Ontario Court of Appeal: “Issues Arising in Criminal Prosecutions for Distant Events”, 1995 Canadian Appellant Court Seminar / Colloque de 1995 des Cours d'appel canadiennes, in Alan D. Gold Collection of Criminal Law Articles, ADGN/RP-005, (March 22, 1995),

24 Repressed memory challenges the commonsense notion that memories become less reliable over time. These memories come flooding back apparently intact accompanied by powerful emotions appropriate to the event and filled with vivid and realistic detail.17 The very richness of the detail seems to carry its own confirmation of reliability. And if the memories are untrue, where did they come from and why are they there? If the memory is not true what possible motive does the witness have for remembering? Common sense and experience do not easily inform these questions. …

13Mr. Hunter, of course, had no obligation to testify. The allegations required him to remember daily routines and events that occurred some years ago. He was cross examined at length, including about whether there were any tools in the shed of his cottage on the occasion of the complainant and her mother’s visit. His insistence that he kept no lawn mower in a shed at the cottage, as was described by the complainant, was argued as not credible by the Crown. I disagree with the Crown. I accept Mr. Hunter’s evidence on this point as more reliable given it was property and whether there was a lawnmower in the shed was not the issue. The issue was whether the complainant was sexually assaulted by the defendant in the shed. The Crown relied on the complainant’s memory of seeing the lawn mower as corroboration that she had been in the shed. Her remembering the shed or its contents, are peripheral to the allegation of sexual assault there.

14On the whole, I found no real issues with the defendant’s credibility. His occasional anger during cross examination was not inconsistent with what might be expected from someone accused of very serious crimes that they had not committed.

15The defendant’s evidence was such that it could be reasonably true. In all the circumstances, including the complainant’s evidence of recalled or recovered memories, and applying the principles set out in R. v. W. (D.), 1991 CanLII 93 (SCC), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742, I am left unsure of the reliability of the complainant’s memories and with a reasonable doubt about the allegations. For these reasons, the charges against the defendant are dismissed.

Honourable Justice Thomas Carey

Handed down (orally): January 15, 2026