The Court of Appeal overturned the conditional absolution of the former leader of the far-right group Atalante. Raphaël Lévesque will finally have a criminal record for breaking in and causing trouble in the Montreal offices of the media VICE in 2018 with several masked accomplices.
In a judgment rendered Thursday, the Court of Appeal instead decided to suspend the sentence. This means that if Raphaël Lévesque keeps quiet during the 18 months of his probation, he will not receive any other sentence. If he contravenes any condition, then a penalty will be imposed on him.
The man was initially charged with four offences, including criminal harassment.
He was acquitted across the board in 2020 by Judge Joëlle Roy of the Court of Quebec. Dissatisfied with the result, the Crown appealed the verdict. Before this highest court, the man was convicted in 2022 on one count, breaking and entering with the intent to commit a criminal act. The case was then returned to the same judge, who pronounced the absolution in February 2023. In Canada, the absolution is the most lenient sentence that a judge can pronounce and the offender does not have a permanent criminal record: the conviction will disappear after a while.
The Crown returned to the Court of Appeal to demand a harsher sentence. The Court of Appeal granted his request, which meant that Judge Joëlle Roy saw her judgments modified on appeal for a second time in this case.
Came with flowers
On May 23, 2018, Raphaël Lévesque, armed with a bouquet of flowers, presented himself alone at the doors of VICE Québec.
Seeing this welcoming visitor, an employee electronically unlocks the front door. Six or seven of his acolytes, until then hidden, then burst into the media’s premises.
With the exception of Raphaël Lévesque, who wears sunglasses, all the others wear masks and a sweater in the colors of the Atalante movement, which described itself as a revolutionary, nationalist and independence group.
With music from the American game show in the background The Price is Right, they throw clown noses and leaflets into the premises, under the stunned eyes of the employees. Some told the trial they felt threatened.
Then, Lévesque gives journalist Simon Coutu a satirical trophy – for an article he wrote about the group a few days earlier – on which it is written “Média Poubelle 2018” and says to him: “A big thank you from the victims of the war that you are trying to leave. » The whole thing lasted 75 seconds, without violent words or gestures.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal
The Court considers that Judge Roy erred by giving too much importance to the claims of Lévesque who maintained that a conviction could harm his job as a truck driver. However, he has held this job for five years, even though he already has a “well-stocked and serious” criminal record for multiple offenses, notes the Court of Appeal.
She agrees with the Crown which had argued: “the evidence does not allow us to conclude here that there is a genuine interest in receiving an absolution for the respondent (Lévesque), who is not a first offender, not a young adult, n who did not plead guilty, and who did not establish the likelihood of negative consequences for his employment situation. »
Lévesque was also ordered to pay $400 to a VICE Quebec employee who was upset by the events and to make a donation of $1,000 to the organization Avocats sans frontières. The Court of Appeal left these convictions intact.