‘I did it’ claim at another man’s trial not immune from the law, says lawyer

Inmate’s statements can’t be used again in court, but police free to investigate

In testimony at another man’s trial, a Matsqui inmate said he sexually assaulted and robbed two University of Victoria international students in January 2016.

The inmate is protected from the future use of his statements in court by the Canada Evidence Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, defence lawyer Paul Pearson said Tuesday.

“But people who come to court and say ‘I did it,’ are not immune from prosecution,” Pearson said.

“Only their comments in court are protected. Police can certainly investigate them and try to build a case.”

It’s not common, but it’s also not unheard of for someone — not the accused — to come to court and take responsibly for a crime. “I’ve had people come to court and they are, in fact, the ones that committed the offence and they’ve been believed by a judge,” said Pearson.

On Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court jury rejected the “confession” of Jean Jacques Nadeau. Instead, the jury found David Robert Hope, 45, guilty of two counts of unlawful confinement, two counts of sexual assault, two counts of robbery and one count of breaking and entering with the intent to commit an indictable offence.

Nadeau is serving a five-yearsentence for a violent sexual assault on a stranger in an Esquimalt park in September 2016. He and Hope served time together in pretrial custody on a sex offenders unit at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre.

But just because a witness isn’t believed, doesn’t mean he has perjured himself, experts say. A perjury charge is very serious and difficult to prove. Usually, the prosecution needs an admission from the person that he wasn’t telling the truth.

And lawyers have to act on their client’s instructions, said Pearson.

“This is what’s important — lawyers running a trial like this don’t put people on the stand if that person has indicated they are not telling the truth or they didn’t actually do it,” Pearson said.

“They will have told the lawyer ‘I did this.’ As a lawyer, you don’t have to 100 per cent verify every aspect of their statement.

“But you can’t put someone on the stand who is saying something that isn’t true and you know not to be true.”

If someone comes forward and takes responsibility for your client’s crime, the worst possible result would be suppressing that evidence, Pearson said.

“It would be a huge problem if lawyers did not allow people who admitted to committing the crime to testify because you could be making a decision to potentially convict an innocent client. … The lawyer almost inevitably has to put that person on the stand.”