Stephanie Pak

The appellant appealed a sexual assault conviction arising from historical allegations involving a complainant who was under 14 during the charge period.

He argued that the trial judge failed to resolve material inconsistencies between the complainant and another Crown witness, improperly treated inconsistent evidence as confirmatory, misstated the application of the W.(D.) rule to exculpatory Crown evidence, and failed to explain the impact of frailties in one allegation on the complainant's overall reliability.

The court held that the alleged inconsistencies were either not borne out by the record or concerned immaterial details, and that the shared details between independent witnesses could properly reinforce the accepted account.

Although the trial judge described the W.(D.) rule too narrowly, the reasons showed that exculpatory Crown evidence was in fact used to generate doubt on one incident.

The conviction appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault arising from an incident during an Uber ride and appealed on the basis of alleged errors of fact and law, primarily contending that the trial judge applied uneven scrutiny to the evidence.

The appellant argued that an Uber receipt, which showed a direct route from pick-up to drop-off, was exonerating and had been given insufficient weight.

The Court of Appeal found no error, deferring to the trial judge's credibility and fact-finding, which included cogent reasons for concluding that the receipt did not accurately reflect the route taken.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference involving a 15-year-old complainant.

He argued the trial judge provided insufficient reasons by failing to adequately resolve inconsistencies in the complainant's testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed this ground, finding the trial judge's reasons sufficiently demonstrated he had seized the substance of the issue and properly assessed the core events.

However, on consent of the Crown, the Court stayed the sexual assault conviction pursuant to the Kienapple principle due to its factual and legal nexus with the sexual interference conviction.

The applicant, convicted of multiple sexual assaults, intentionally failed to report to the provincial sex offender registry to challenge the constitutionality of Christopher's Law.

He argued that the mandatory registration and lifetime reporting provisions violated s. 7 of the Charter.

Applying the Supreme Court's reasoning in Ndhlovu, the court found that both provisions were overbroad because they captured offenders who posed no increased risk of reoffending.

The court rejected the Crown's argument that the provincial registry's focus on time-sensitive investigations justified the overbreadth under s. 1.

The provisions were declared unconstitutional as applied to the applicant, and the charge of failing to report was stayed.

The appellant challenged a criminal appeal decision from the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The Court heard the appeal and delivered an oral judgment the same day.

It held that the appeal should be dismissed substantially for the reasons of the majority in the provincial appellate court.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, found not criminally responsible for criminal harassment, appealed the Ontario Review Board's disposition ordering his detention in a Secure Forensic Unit and retaining an electronics supervision clause.

The appellant argued the disposition was not the least onerous and restrictive option and that the Board improperly rejected a joint submission to remove the electronics clause.

The Court of Appeal dismissed these grounds, finding the Board's decisions reasonable given the appellant's recent elopements and worsening auditory hallucinations.

However, the appeal was allowed in part to reinstate clauses for indirectly supervised and accompanied privileges, which the Board had mistakenly removed.

The appellant sought leave to challenge a three-year sentence for breaching a long-term supervision order, arguing enhanced pre-sentence credit should have been granted.

Leave was granted but the sentence appeal was dismissed.

The appellant challenged convictions for sexual offences against a child, arguing that the trial judge misapprehended the complainant’s evidence, failed to address an alleged motive to fabricate, and improperly relied on limited evidence from the child’s mother.

The Court of Appeal held that the impugned misattribution in the reasons was immaterial to the central credibility analysis and disclosed no material misapprehension of evidence.

It further held that the trial judge’s rejection of the fabrication theory was adequately explained and that she was entitled to accept only discrete portions of the mother’s evidence.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his sexual assault conviction, arguing the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding his semen found on a towel worn by the complainant.

The appellant claimed the semen was present because he was having an affair with the complainant's mother, who used the towel to clean him.

The trial judge rejected this evidence, finding no affair existed and the explanation implausible.

The Court of Appeal found no misapprehension of evidence, concluding the trial judge's findings were open to her and the inconsistencies regarding the towel's location did not undermine the DNA evidence.

The appeal was dismissed.