Summary

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Summary

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Criminal law - Aggravated assault - Defence of accident - Misapprehension of evidence - Whether the trial judge erred by failing to explain why inferences supporting the defence of accident were not accepted.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated assault. The trial judge found that he intentionally cut his friend and co-worker’s arm. The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence respecting his relationship with the complainant and that it proved an absence of motive, that he misapprehended the evidence respecting the appellant’s intoxication by failing to appreciate that it militated in favour of finding that he accidentally cut the complainant, that the trial judge’s inference that the appellant intended to cut the complainant was unreasonable, and that the verdict was unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence. The majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Welsh J.A., dissenting, would have allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction and entered an acquittal. In his view, the trial judge erred by failing to explain why inferences supporting the defence of accident were not accepted.

Lower Court Rulings