Two teenagers on a visiting school trip were said to have taken photos in the courtroom during a court hearing for eight girls accused of swarming and killing a homeless man.
Richard Lautens Toronto Star The Star
Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ) criminal courts at 10 Armoury St. in Toronto.
Two teenagers on a visiting school trip were said to have taken photos in the courtroom during a court hearing for eight girls accused of swarming and killing a homeless man.
Richard Lautens Toronto Star The Star
Two teenagers on a visiting school trip were said to have taken photos in the courtroom during a court hearing for eight girls accused of swarming and killing a homeless man.
Andrew Francis Wallace Toronto S The Star
Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ) criminal courts at 10 Armoury St. in Toronto.
A court hearing for eight girls accused of swarming and killing a homeless man in downtown Toronto was interrupted Thursday after two teenagers on a visiting school trip were said to have taken photos in the courtroom.
Crown attorney Mary Humphrey alerted the court that a worker had witnessed the pictures being taken as Justice David Rose was hearing evidence in the girls’ preliminary hearing on second-degree murder charges.
Rose called the two teens forward from the public gallery and asked them to identify themselves before telling them to place their cellphones on the bench in front of him, which they did.
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The case against the eight teenage girls charged with murder in the 2022 death of Kenneth Lee is still in the pre-trial phases. A preliminary hearing typically sees prosecutors presenting evidence, which can’t be published by law until after the case has concluded. The reason for that is to avoid biasing a future jury that may not hear all the same evidence at trial. Rose ordered such a ban in this case.
All court hearings for youth see additional layers of publication bans, including ones to protect both the identity of young people who have been accused as well as any youth witnesses in a case. That ban, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is meant to acknowledge that youth, whose brains aren’t fully developed, can’t be held to the same standards as adults. The legal system, the act says, should put emphasis on efforts to rehabilitate young people.
Publishing the identities of young people involved in the criminal justice system is a criminal offence under the YCJA. Taking pictures in any courtroom violates the non-criminal Courts of Justice Act.
Once the phones had been seized, Rose told the teens that taking pictures in court was “very serious” and asked for someone from the duty counsel’s office, which represents adults and youth who don’t have their own lawyers, to be brought to the courtroom.
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Once duty counsel was present, Crown attorney Sarah De Filippis recommended returning the phones to the teens and witness them deleting the photos in the presence of court officers before recording their contact information.
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After the hearing had resumed, the lawyer from the duty counsel office updated Rose that only one of the teens had taken photos and that they had all been deleted from their phone and didn’t appear to have been posted online.
Rose said the matter was considered closed.
A trial has not yet been scheduled.
Jennifer Pagliaro is a city hall reporter at the Toronto Star, where she has worked since 2011.
