A judge tossed key evidence in a local man's drugs and guns case last month because of an "egregious" violation of his Charter rights.
Travis Parsons faced 26 charges stemming from a March 21, 2023 police raid of his Walters Street home.
City police officers, armed with a search warrant, seized narcotics, firearms, ammunition, money, scales, a debt list and other items.
Ontario Court Justice Heather Mendes ruled on Oct. 22 that the cops had breached his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and unlawful arrest.
"This is not a trivial breach," she said, finding there wasn't a sufficient basis for issuing the search warrant, and the severity of the breach calls for exclusion of the evidence.
Parsons, 42, was charged with counts of possession of methamphetamine and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and unlawful possession of MDMA (ecstasy).
As well, he faced 15 weapons' counts, seven charges of failing to comply with release orders and a single count of unlawful possession of an identity document.
During the search, police seized 4.46 grams of fentanyl, 5.50 grams of meth and 4.57 grams of ecstasy.
As well, officers found a sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun, a sawed-off Mossburg single-barrel rifle, and a silver revolver handgun.
They also discovered numerous rounds of ammunition.
After Mendes delivered her decision, she asked the Crowns how they wished to proceed with the case.
Federal prosecutor Lindsay Marshall and assistant Crown attorney Andrew Allen indicated they had no evidence to call and the charges were dismissed.
Defence lawyer Don Orazietti filed an application under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on Feb. 15, seeking an order quashing the search warrant and excluding all evidence obtained from it.
The application centred around the Information to Obtain (ITO) -- an affidavit drafted by police setting out grounds for requesting a search warrant.
An ITO is reviewed by a justice of the peace or a judge who may issue a warrant.
Orazietti argued that the ITO failed to provide a sufficient basis for the justice to issue the warrant.
He maintained information from a confidential informant was neither compelling, credible nor sufficiently corroborated.
As well, the officer who swore the affidavit failed to make full, fair and frank disclosure, the defence said.
The Crown argued the ITO contained compelling information that could be relied on as credible and corroborated.
The informant had provided such information in the past and police surveillance supported illegal activity at the accused's west-end home. As such, "the warrant should stand," the prosecutors maintained.
Mendes said when considering the totality of the circumstances there is a real shortage of information and a police summary report is misleading.
"There is no clear way to tell how remote the information of the observations of trafficking are," she said.
There is a broad sweeping statement that Parsons was selling substances, but the report, written by the informant's handler, doesn't indicate if the information was based on first-hand or second-hand observations "or something more remote such as rumour or gossip."
Mendes decided there wasn't a sufficient basis for the justice to issue the warrant and the accused's privacy rights were violated.
"I find that the breach of Mr. Parsons' right to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure and unlawful arrest was egregious."
The court can't condone the police conduct in this case, the judge said, describing it as "unacceptable and unreasonable."
Information in the ITO was misleading, and the officer's drafting of the document wasn't "reasonably diligent or mindful" in making "full, fair and frank disclosure."
Mendes indicated she wasn't concluding that the officer intentionally or deliberately misled the justice who issued the warrant.
"I do find that the material omissions and the mischaracterization was serious, and in the circumstances of this case, amounts to carelessness," she said.
The Supreme Court of Canada has declared "there is no place on earth where persons can have a greater expectation of privacy than within their dwelling-house," she noted.
The violation of Parsons' Section 8 Charter rights is at the serious end of the spectrum, Mendes said.
Admitting the evidence gathered during this breach "goes to the core of our society's rights and freedoms and would bring the administration of justice into disrepute," she concluded.