The accused was charged with several offences, including sexual assault and child luring.
During the investigation, police impersonated the 15-year-old complainant using her phone to communicate with the accused and capture his messages without a warrant.
Upon his arrest, police conducted a warrantless search of his cell phone, taking screenshots of all messages across multiple applications.
The court found that the accused had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his messages to the complainant, and that the warrantless undercover operation violated his s. 8 Charter rights.
The court also found the search of his phone incident to arrest was overly broad and violated s. 8.
Applying s. 24(2) of the Charter, the court excluded the evidence obtained from the undercover operation and the search incident to arrest.