The trial of a man accused of violent sexual assault almost did not take place because of a misuse of the Teams application, where one of his victims recorded a private conversation between him and his lawyer, without their knowledge.
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“The present case is a perfect illustration of the unintended consequences of the increasingly frequent use […] technology,” summarizes Superior Court judge François Dadour in a recent decision that will have major repercussions on the legal process against Samuel Comeau.
The magistrate had to issue several draconian orders after the main complainant in the case, who cannot be identified, allegedly flouted the lawyer-client privilege, “a fundamental and primary rule of law”.
In particular, the judge ordered that the Crown prosecutor who was leading the case, several of her colleagues familiar with the events and the investigator from the Sûreté du Québec be excluded from the proceedings in progress.
Only a lawyer from the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions who did not have access to privileged information following the incident will be able to take charge of the file thereafter.
The unfortunate event occurred on October 12, 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Comeau was due to undergo his release investigation.
Several serious charges
The 32-year-old man is charged with 17 counts of common to aggravated assault, threats, forcible confinement, sexual assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm and use of an imitation firearm in the commission of the assault and murder. sexual assault. He would have had four victims between 2011 and 2019.
Photo taken from Samuel Comeau’s Facebook page
Pictured here is Samuel Comeau in 2011. He is charged with 17 counts of common to aggravated assault, threats, forcible confinement, sexual assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm, and use of an imitation firearm in the commission of assault and sexual assault.
“The alleged facts are serious: they are allegations of a high degree of violence in a domestic context, including punching, kicking, hair pulling, spitting, biting of the lips, sexual assault with penetration, grabbed by the throat, beatings while the complainant was pregnant, threats to cause death, use of a firearm to threaten the complainant, and insertion of the weapon into her body, ”says the judge Dadour.
In a second case, he is accused of three assault offenses against three minors, at three separate times.
Note that Samuel Comeau is still presumed innocent of these charges.
The complainant records everything
During the hearing, defense counsel, Mr.e David Leclair, asked to have a confidential interview with Comeau, which was granted.
“Confidentiality had to be ensured by excluding everyone from the room. The clerk disabled the recording [des micros dans la salle]and the special constable in charge of the room locked the doors”, describes Judge Dadour.
However, the main victim in the file was connected via the Teams platform and was able to attend the interview, because she was never disconnected.
She even filmed the twelve-minute conversation using a cell phone, we learn in the decision. She was able to read several pieces of information that she would normally never have had access to, including the strategy they thought they were following in the file.
The Crown even admitted that what it had done constituted, in part, an unlawful interception of private communications.
The investigator at the Sûreté du Québec in the file, Valéry St-Pierre, even told the complainant to take notes, having probably not understood that it was a privileged discussion between a lawyer and his client. .
Never seen
The defense demanded a stay of proceedings against Samuel Comeau, arguing that his right to a fair trial is now compromised.
But the magistrate did not agree to the defense request. However, he imposed a list of several “reparations”.
Possibly for the first time in Canada, an in camera hearing where the Crown will, at its suggestion, be excluded (ex parte) and where the victim will have to testify about the incident that occurred.
This way of doing things, almost never seen according to many participants in the judicial community, will therefore prevent the presence of the public prosecutor, who will not be able to object to possible questions from the defence.
“For me it is something very unusual. […] I do not claim to have seen everything, but that, I have never seen a decision as such. We can see that the judge did a lot of thinking to get to that,” argued retired judge Nicole Gibeault.
“It comes to restore the attack on the integrity of the trial. But it also makes it possible to continue the procedures without ordering a stop, it is a very important file to carry out to the end, ”she adds.
A total of 13 measures were put in place by Judge Dadour to avoid a stay of proceedings.
“The combination of all these measures and their cumulative effect restore the fairness of the trial and repair the damage to the integrity of the judicial system. This combination of remedies reaches the balance point sought in this case, ”he believes.