Charges against officer reinstated by court

Grant accused of assault in confrontation in downtown St. Catharines

A Superior Court judge has ruled a Niagara judge erred in his application of the law when he stayed criminal charges against a Niagara Regional Police officer accused of an onduty assault against a member of the public.

“In my view, any reasonable person having reviewed all of the surveillance audio/videos of the night in question would be shocked and appalled by the images of a police sergeant assaulting a vulnerable person with mental-health challenges,” Judge John Harper said in his decision released earlier this month. “If these charges do not go to trial, the administration of justice would be certainly be held in disrepute.”

Harper quashed the stay of proceedings and instructed the matter be returned to the Ontario Court of Justice to be tried by a judge other than Judge Cameron Watson, who presided over the lower court application.

In his decision, Harper said the judge made “multiple significant reversible error of the fact” in the case against Sgt. Jake Grant.

The officer was charged in February 2017 with assaulting a 30-year-old man in a downtown St. Catharines Subway restaurant following a confrontation.

The incident was captured on

closed-circuit video from the restaurant, as well as on the complainant’s cellphone.

A trial had been sent to begin in April 2019, however, those dates were vacated as the courts conducted a hearing on an abuse of process application brought by the defence.

Watson found for the defence in June 2019 and granted the application for the stay against the 16-year police veteran. A stay means the court proceedings are suspended.

The Crown appealed the decision to the Superior Court of Justice.

Court heard police were called to the restaurant after the complainant refused to leave the restaurant when asked to do so.

After the alleged assault, the complainant was taken to a hospital for a mental-health assessment.

The man went to the police station on a number of occasions following the incident, saying he was interested in filing a complaint but would let it go if he received a sum of money.

In his ruling on the application, Watson was critical of the complainant’s behaviour as well as the conduct of the police and the Crown.

“An objective member of the public having thoroughly reviewed this proceeding in this court’s opinion would find that there cannot be a fair trial and a final decision on the merits cannot be arrived at.”

Harper, who said the NRP conducted a comprehensive investigation into the incident, ruled the judge’s finding that the community’s conscience would be shocked, and its “sense of fair play and decency would be offended” is not supported in the evidence.