Crown won’t appeal photo-radar decision

Judge deems photo evidence inadmissible

Prosecutors in Quebec will not appeal a sternly worded court decision that found flaws in photo-radar evidence for a $1,160 speeding ticket, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The court decision, released last month, came with a warning to prosecutors that similar evidence would no longer be tolerated — prompting Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre to voice concerns to the provincial government, “considering that thousands of tickets could be cancelled because the process was called inexact.”

After the court decision, the Quebec Justice Ministry suggested an appeal hinged on whether the judgment would nullify other tickets issued by photo radar.

But on Wednesday, Crown spokesman Jean-Pascal Boucher said there were no fears that past traffic tickets involving photo radar would be affected — so the Crown opted instead to make changes to ensure future photo-radar evidence is admissible. He wouldn’t specify what the changes would be, though.

“We respect the decision of the court,” Boucher said. “We will make sure the evidence will be admissible.”

The case saw Maria Carmela Bove slapped with a $1,160 speeding ticket after a photo-radar machine took a picture of her car on a Montreal highway going 140 km/h in a 70-km/h zone. Quebec Court Judge Serge Cimon dismissed the photo evidence as hearsay and acquitted Bove. He took issue with the fact that the officer relied on second-hand information, rather than personally checking the scene to make sure there was a clearly marked speed-limit sign, or verifying that the photo-radar machine had undergone the requisite checks.

“The offence report is based entirely on information gathered and recorded by third parties,” the judge wrote in French, cautioning the prosecution that any similar evidence brought forward in the future would be considered inadmissible and could see a court order the Crown to pay a defendant’s legal costs.

He said the case gave credence to the common criticism that photo radar is “a ‘cash cow’ used to generate revenue.”

It was the latest strike against photo radar, a decades-old policing technique that has become a perennial topic for political debate across Canada.

In Alberta, Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Jason Kenney called the practice “an abuse of the power of government” in an interview with the Edmonton Journal.

In Ontario, however, Premier Kathleen Wynne pledged to bring back the controversial cameras roughly two decades after Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservatives made good on a campaign pledge to shelve them.