CASE RESULT
| Charges | Three counts of sexual assault, s. 271 of the Criminal Code |
| Court | Ontario Court of Justice, Toronto |
| Result | Guilty plea to one count of assault, s. 266 — conditional discharge |
The situation
Our client was a 22-year-old international student. Within days of the start of her first semester, following a night involving alcohol, the client was charged with three counts of sexual assault. There was an independent witness that saw most part of what happened. After the charges, the client returned to her home country.
The obstacle
Jake painstakingly built a portfolio of the client’s past personal circumstances and achievements in her life. After many meetings with the Crown and Judges regarding resolution, the Crown agreed to a plea to one count of assault with a conditional discharge, which means no criminal record.
However, a guilty plea ordinarily requires the accused to be physically present in court and the client’s visa application was experiencing a long delay, and the Court was contemplating on issuing an arrest warrant.
Jake prepared a jurisdictional application for the plea and sentencing to proceed by video with our client appearing from China, relying on the video appearance provisions introduced by the 2022 Criminal Code amendments (S.C. 2022, c. 17), including ss. 714.6 and 715.22. It secured the court’s jurisdiction and broke the deadlock.
The result
The client entered a plea to a single count of assault under s. 266, with the sexual assault counts withdrawn, and the court imposed a conditional discharge. Subject to completing probation, our client will have no criminal conviction, no criminal record and no sex offender registration — and the inadmissibility that would have ended any prospect of returning to Canada was avoided.
For a non-citizen client, the difference between a conviction and a discharge is not a matter of degree. It is the difference between a future in this country and no future in it at all.
Every case turns on its own facts. Past results are not a guarantee of, and do not predict, the outcome of any future matter. Identifying details have been omitted to protect the privacy of the parties.
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