Two girls who pleaded guilty in the alleged deadly swarm of a homeless in Toronto will not face more time in detention after a judge of Ontario discovered Tuesday that the searches of bands that they have suffered during detention violated their right to privacy.
The judge of the Ontario court, David Stewart Rose, rejected the attempted girls so that the accusations brought against them have remained above the searches, however, opting rather to give them a reduced conviction.
“It would shock the community to suspend the accusations”, especially when another appeal is available, Rose said in court on Tuesday.
One of the girls pleaded guilty last year for manslaughter for the death of Kenneth Lee, 59, while the other pleaded guilty for aggression with a weapon and assault causing bodily injury.
The girl who pleaded guilty of guilty manslaughter will serve two years of probation and will participate in a community program, while the girl who pleaded guilty to accusations of aggression will serve a year of probation. The two face additional conditions during probation, especially that they continue to go to advice.
The police alleged that Lee, who lived in the city’s shelter system, was invaded and stabbed by a group of eight girls in December 2022.
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Defense lawyers for the two girls had argued that the rights of their customers under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were raped when the girls were searched several times while they were detained in a young establishment After their arrest.
The standards set out by the Ministry of Children and Young Services allow research of routine striptease in certain circumstances, but an updated version that entered in 2018 requires that young people “are not completely undressed during a period time, “said the court.
The girl who pleaded guilty to accusations of assault was 13 at the time and was searched three times. The other girl was 14 years old and suffered seven -time band research. The girls were completely naked to at least some of these occasions, the court learned.
The searches were not “an isolated incident” but rather a “systemic problem”, the defense lawyer Karen Lau Po Hung, who represents the girl, argued during a recent audience.
The girls were in a vulnerable position and the strip excavations had a “deep impact”, said Anne Marie Morphew, the defense lawyer for the older adolescent. Only a procedural suspension could tackle the scope of the issue and ensure that such searches do not occur in the future, she argued in recent submissions.
The Crown has at the end that a procedural stay should not be the remedy due to “the catastrophic impact” which would have on the judicial system.
In her decision on Tuesday, Rose said that he had found “disturbing” that young people were subject to searches of routine strip-porn without any specific suspicion that they had weapons or another smuggling.
The judge noted both the current nature of the searches and the way the girls were searched were unreasonable and stressed that the law on criminal justice for young people includes increased protection of private life beyond those granted to adults in detention.
Rose also underlined striptease research as a major mitigation factor last year during the conviction of two other girls who pleaded guilty of manslaughter in the case. In these cases also, the girls were sentenced to unprecedented probation.
The case now goes to the Ontario Superior Court, where the four remaining girls should be tried.
A lawyer trial should start in the coming days for two girls for second degree murder. The other two should be tried before a judge and a jury in May, one of them for second degree murder and one for manslaughter.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press