Client charged with unlawful confinement, sexual assault, and assault causing bodily harm. On the date of the incident a woman ran naked from his residence, encountered a woman across the street and alleged she had been confined, assaulted, and sexually assaulted. The woman called 911 advising of the allegations. Police attended and spoke to the complainant about what happened. She was then taken to the hospital where she became uncooperative and would not participate in a “rape kit” exam. 3 days later the complainant attended at the police station and provided an audio/video statement regarding the incident. At trial the complainant could not be located. The Crown planned to try to enter the video taped statement into evidence for the truth of its contents.
Charter notice was filed relating to a failure to disclose the 911 tape, in addition to some lost diagrams made by the complainant. It was also noted that defence would seek to exclude the video statement as it was neither reliable (the allegations in the initial narrative to police on the scene were wildly different from the allegations in the video statement), nor necessary (disclosure revealed that the complainant had been dealt with by the police only one month prior to the trial on an unrelated matter).
Held: On trial date the Crown elected to call no evidence and the charges were dismissed.