Confirmatory evidence

R. v. Lakatos, 2011 ONCA 318 deals with confirmatory evidence - something akin to corroboration. Under the old law, of course, where corroboration was necessary evidence was necessary that tended to show a crime had occurred and the accused was somehow connected to the crime. Save in a few cases set by statute (child witnesses and treason spring to mind) corroboration in the strict sense is no longer required. Lakatos makes clear that confirmatory evidence does not bring the old corroboration back through, as it were, a side door. The Court holds:


[7]              It was not necessary, as the appellants argue, that individual items of confirmatory evidence must specifically confirm that the criminal conduct amounted to a forcible confinement, or that a firearm was used: R. v. J.K., [2011] O.J. No. 124 (C.A.).  Rather, the confirmatory evidence needed only to give the trial judge a basis for accepting the testimony of El-Ghafari regarding relevant aspects of his account of the events.