Defence appeal from conviction on charges of assault causing. Prison assaults. Crown entered a video at trial that captured the events in question. Neither prison guard who gave evidence were asked, nor did they testify, that the video in question did in fact accurately depict what they saw in the prison yard.
Held: Appeal dismissed.
“There is an important distinction between recordings (video or audio) and other forms of real evidence … which supports a test of ‘substantial’ accuracy over the appellants’ preferred test of ‘not altered’ … It follows that the Crown’s failure to establish that this video recording was not altered should not be fatal, so long as the Crown proves that it is a substantially accurate and fair representation of what it purports to show … A trial judge is entitled to authenticate a video recording by using circumstantial evidence of one or more witnesses.”
K. Quinlan, E. McIntyre, K. Aujla – Defence Counsel