Sexual Offences

Cross-examination is the defence.

In a case with no forensic evidence and no independent witnesses, cross-examination is not a flourish at the end of the trial. It’s the whole mechanism by which we put the defence.

Done properly it’s quiet, structured and unhurried. It’s built out of the disclosure over weeks from prior statements, timelines, messages, and medical and third-party records where they exist. It aims at reliability, not at the complainant personally. A cross-examination that attacks a witness usually loses. One that establishes carefully what could not have happened the way it was described can win.

Historical allegations and the law as it was.

Where an allegation concerns events from decades ago, the applicable law is the law as it stood at the time, not the law as it reads today. The offence structure has changed a great deal. the former offence of rape was replaced by the current graduated sexual assault provisions, and specific offences such as sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching were created at identifiable dates.

In one matter, our client was charged in relation to an allegation from 1994 involving another man. No such offence existed in Canadian law at that time. The original charge was withdrawn, a lesser charge substituted, and that charge resolved in our client’s favour.

Delay also cuts against the reliability of an account in ways the court is required to consider.

Admissions are not the end.

Clients often assume that a recorded admission, a text message or a statement to police settles the matter. It doesn’t settle it automatically.

Statements are challenged on voluntariness, on whether the right to counsel was given and honoured, and on whether the detention was lawful. Recordings made by complainants raise their own admissibility questions. We have obtained acquittals in matters where our client had been recorded appearing to agree with the allegation.

The consequences reach past the sentence.

A conviction for a sexual offence carries registration obligations, immigration consequences for non-citizens, employment and professional consequences, and effects on family law proceedings. For a permanent resident or refugee, a conviction can mean removal from Canada.

These are not secondary considerations. They frequently determine whether a matter should be resolved or run, and they have to be on the table from the first meeting.