Child abuse charge stayed over delay

• A father accused of breaking his two- weekold baby’s ankles has had his criminal charge stayed by a judge, making it the second known case of alleged child abuse in Ottawa to be tossed out due to court delays since a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

“We were angry, we were crying, we were outraged that he was able to get off with this ( ruling),” the baby boy’s grandmother told the Ottawa Citizen on Thursday.

In the latest case, the Ottawa man was accused of breaking his son’s bones in September 2014. After a police investigation, the father, who was 20 at the time, was charged in December 2014 with assault causing bodily harm.

Just as the baby’s mother and grandmother were pre- paring to testify in December 2016, they got an unexpected phone call. They thought i t was someone from the courthouse calling with information about their upcoming court appearance.

Instead, they say they were told they were no longer needed because the case was being thrown out.

Ontario Court Justice Mitchell Hoffman stayed the charge on Nov. 29, 2016, after ruling the delay in moving the case forward violated the father’s constitutional right to a speedy trial. It would have taken about 24 months from the day the father was charged to the anticipated end of the trial, which never started.

“We honestly have hatred. So much hatred, it’s unbelievable," the baby’s grandmother said. "We thought justice would prevail. We honestly thought the justice system would take care of right from wrong, especially whenever it’s involving a child."

The names in the case cannot be published because the child’s identity is subject to a publication ban.

The case is among a handful in Ottawa that have been stayed following a Supreme Court ruling last July that established new rules regarding what is a reasonable amount of time for an accused’s case to proceed to trial.

Delays t hat exceed 18 months in provincial courts — or 30 months in Superior Court — are “presumptively unreasonable,” according to the ruling known as the R. v. Jordan decision.

Charges must be stayed unless the Crown can prove the delays were due to exceptional or unavoidable circumstances or that the delay was justified under guidelines that existed before the Jordan decision.

Last month, another Ottawa judge stayed a charge against a 15-year-old boy accused of sexually assaulting a three- year- old girl at his mother’s daycare in 2015. The delay in that case was 21 months.

Back in November, two weeks before the child-abuse case involving the baby boy was stayed, the Jordan law also came under fire for letting an alleged killer go free.

Adam Picard, an ex- soldier, was freed after a judge stayed a first-degree murder charge because his trial took four years to get started. It was the first time in Ontario since the Jordan decision that a murder charge was stayed due to court delays.

WE WERE CRYING, WE WERE OUTRAGED THAT HE WAS ABLE TO GET OFF WITH THIS (RULING). — BABY BOY’S GRANDMOTHER