CASE RESULT
R v S.G.Y – Twelve Charges. Zero Convictions.
Domestic assault and firearms charges — withdrawn in full
What Our Client Was Facing
A young man in Toronto was arrested after an argument with his partner. By the end of the night, police had searched his condominium, seized his lawfully licensed firearms, and laid twelve criminal charges:
- Assault — s. 266 — four counts
- Careless storage of a firearm — s. 86(1) — six counts
- Mischief under $5,000 and unauthorized possession of a prohibited device — two counts
What We Did
Jake was retained within two days. He demanded full disclosure — three separate requests, naming every officer who attended — until the Crown produced the body-worn camera footage, the in-car recordings, the booking video, and the dispatch records. More than forty gigabytes of video across a dozen camera angles.
Then he watched all of it, and built a timestamped, minute-by-minute reconstruction of the night. The video told a very different story than the police notes: the client was detained without being told why and without being offered a lawyer; he was arrested for assault and then questioned about firearms; he was interrogated after he asked to speak to counsel; he sat in a cruiser for over two hours while no one connected him to a lawyer; and he was pressured into unlocking his own phone. All of it on camera.
The Outcome
Jake then engaged the Crown; walked the Crown through the timeline and the Charter violations. The Crown eventually agreed to withdraw all charges due to numerous Charter violations by several officers.