Naqvi calls circumstances of stayed case ‘tragic’

Non-disclosure of evidence led to almost a third of 20-month trial delay, judge says

A case of a father accused of breaking his infant son’s ankles was tossed out after a two-year delay largely due to the Crown’s not sharing key evidence with the defence in a timely fashion, a judge has explained.

It is among a handful of cases in Ottawa that have been stayed since a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling that set new rules for prosecutions to be completed within a reasonable time, and marks the second known case of alleged child abuse to be tossed out due to delay since the top court decision.

“The circumstances of this case are tragic and concerning,” Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said in an email to the Citizen on Monday.

“I have been advised that the Crown has filed an appeal of the ruling and I fully support this decision. Our criminal justice system must work to be responsive to the needs of everyone involved — victims and the accused — while keeping our communities safe. We are working on all fronts to ensure that cases get to court faster so that we a have fairer criminal justice system. As this matter is before court it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

The comments from Naqvi, whose riding is in Ottawa, come after a judge outlined his reasons Monday for staying the father’s charge of assault causing bodily harm.

The accused in this case was an Ottawa dad who, in 2014 when he was 20, was charged after police alleged he broke the two-weekold boy’s bones while he was living with him.

But he walked free last November when Ontario Court Justice Mitchell Hoffman stayed his charge after ruling the delays in moving the case forward violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The ruling followed new guidelines from the Supreme Court in July designed to see trials in provincial courts completed within 18 months. The new limit for Superior Court is 30 months.

In this case, the delay exceeded 20 months, according to the judge.

The trial was originally scheduled to go ahead on May 16, 2016, but the defence asked for an adjournment in the weeks leading up to the trial because some medical reports disclosed by the Crown were missing. The missing reports from a key Crown witness, a physician, were crucial to the case because she relied on them in forming her expert opinion as to the potential causes of the baby’s injuries, the judge said.

The trial had to be adjourned and the next available dates weren’t until mid-December.

In giving his reasons for his decision to stay the case, Hoffman said Monday that approximately six months were lost “due to the lack of adherence to the Crown disclosure obligations, which was not inadvertent or caused by human error, or exceptional circumstance.”

The father cannot be named because his son’s identity is protected by a publication.

The judge said the accused was facing serious allegations and the public interest was high in the case, but the Crown’s behaviour “exacerbates the prejudice caused by the defendant.”

He calculated the total delays attributed to the defence at about two and a half months.