Evidence admitted despite Charter violations
This frame grab shows Byron Sonne being interviewed by Toronto police Det. Tam Bui on June 23, 2010. Sonne was jailed for 330 days in pre-trial custody before he was granted bail in May.
At times it was hard for Byron Sonne’s father to keep his exasperation to himself.
During the first day of his son’s trial, Bue Sonne shook his head so animatedly while the Crown reviewed photos of the various chemicals in his son’s garage and workshop that Bue’s wife, Valerie, had to shush him.
“I have this stuff in my garage,” he whispered.
Byron Sonne, a 39-year-old computer hacker dubbed the “G20 Geek,” is charged with possessing explosive materials and “counselling the commission of mischief not committed” in the lead-up to the G20 Summit in Toronto.
He was arrested on June 22, 2010, and accused of plotting to bomb the meeting of world leaders while allegedly using social media to encourage others to disrupt the security apparatus. Sonne, who has no criminal record, spent 11 months in pre-trial custody before he was released on bail in May.
The first month of his highly anticipated trial, before judge alone, was spent arguing legal motions regarding the admissibility of evidence.
While conceding that police violated Sonne’s Charter rights — at least in part — at various points in their investigation, Justice Nancy Spies ruled Monday to allow the bulk of the Crown’s evidence, setting the stage for a long and protracted trial that won’t conclude until the spring.
After this week’s hearings, the trial will adjourn to March 17, due to scheduling conflicts.
Spies did not provide the full reasons for her ruling, but she said despite some individual breaches of rights, including the evidence would not bring the “administration of justice into disrepute,” as Sonne’s lawyers had argued.
They had sought the exclusion of most of the evidence against their client, arguing that police showed a general disregard for Sonne’s rights and a pattern of Charter violations, ranging from how they unlawfully obtained his identification by threatening to charge him with jaywalking, to using search warrant applications — parts of which were later disproved — riddled with conjecture.
Spies dismissed the argument that the search warrant applications were deliberately misleading, instead favouring the Crown’s position that although there were flaws, taken as a whole there was sufficient evidence and reasonable grounds to obtain a warrant.
Sonne’s lawyers declined to comment on Spies’ ruling since she did not release the reasons for her decision.
Sonne, a hobby chemist and hyperactive tinkerer, admitted to police in recorded interviews — available on YouTube here and here — that he did in fact possess materials that could be combined to make explosives, but he had not combined them.
What police originally thought was a homemade detonator turned out to be an electric thermometer.
On Wednesday, an explosives expert will begin testimony about the materials found in Sonne’s house.
