Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Criminal law - Trial - Charge to jury - Evidence - Criminal record and evidence of bad character - Whether the trial judge erred in failing to properly instruct the jury on the use it could make of a witness’ criminal record and evidence of bad character in deciding whether there was a reasonable doubt as to the appellant’s guilt.

The appellant was convicted of breaking and entering a dwelling house and committing sexual assault. At trial, he admitted to breaking into the house but denied the sexual assault. He argued that he broke into the house with another person, but left as soon as he discovered it was occupied. It was his position that the other person must have committed the sexual assault. However, testifying for the Crown, that individual said he had not been involved in the breaking and entering. Both individuals have criminal records and are persons of disreputable character. On appeal, the appellant argued that the trial judge failed to instruct the jury that it could not use evidence of his bad character as probative of guilt and that it could not used evidence of the other person’s criminal record and bad character to decide whether it had a reasonable doubt as to there having been only one intruder. The majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Prowse J.A., dissenting, would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial. In her view, the jury would not have understood from the trial judge’s instructions that it could use the other individual’s criminal record as evidence that he was the sort of person who had the propensity to commit crimes of dishonesty such as the breaking and entering with the appellant. Rather, Prowse J.A. found that the jury would likely have understood that it was only to use the criminal record of the other individual for the limited purpose of assessing credibility.