Case information

Criminal law — Evidence — Quality of audio recordings of intercepted conversations — When should audio communications of poor quality be relied on to support a conviction — What is the proper approach for assessing extremely poor audio recordings — Is the test that the recording must be of sufficient quality to permit a fair and reliable assessment of the substance of the conversation so that the trier of fact will not be misled or confused — Where an audio recording is largely unintelligible even with enhancements, how can psychological influences such as priming be mitigated — Whether a miscarriage of justice occurred given errors identified in the transcription of audio recordings relied upon to support convictions?

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.

Police officers conducting a drug enforcement investigation obtained an authorisation to intercept communications. They observed Mr. Prasad twice meet with one of the targets and audio-recorded their conversations. They believe Mr. Prasad offered to sell the target cocaine on both occasions and negotiated a price. Mr. Prasad was charged with two counts of trafficking cocaine. The audio recordings were of poor quality and had to be audio enhanced to be discernible and to produce transcripts. Mr. Prasad brought a motion to exclude the audio-recordings and the transcripts from evidence. The trial judge dismissed the motion and convicted Mr. Prasad on two counts of trafficking cocaine. The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal. It subsequently dismissed motions to adduce fresh evidence and to re-open the appeal.