Charter Litigation All Grown Up

Today's Superior Court decision in R. v. Heddle, 2008 CanLII 23950 is a good example of how sophisticated Charter considerations have become.

In Heddle the police were called to deal with an assault outside a pizza take away. They attended and reviewed a video of the scene. The video showed a suspect similar to a person of interest for a domestic assault in the area.

Subsequently the police arrested an individual (who was the person of interest on the domestic assault) based on the pizza assault. Drugs were found on the accused who was then tried for the drug offence but not the pizza assault.

The video of the pizza assault was not preserved by the police and the accused sought a stay based on that.

The Court, in careful reasons, held there was a breach of the accused's s 7 rights because there was insufficient evidence to show the Crown did not act not negligently. But the stay was not granted because, on balance, to do so would bring justice into disrepute.
James Morton
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