If you are facing criminal harassment charges, you need a criminal defence lawyer in Toronto to look at your case as soon as possible.
Criminal harassment, often called stalking, is when someone (usually repeatedly) follows, communicates with, watches, or threatens another person or their family members, causing them to reasonably fear for their safety.
This offence covers activity from incessantly phoning the same person all the way to making threats against a person, their friends, pets or family (and, in some contexts, threats toward judges, jurors or witnesses may amount to intimidation of a justice system participant).
Some of the most common examples in Toronto include:
- Following someone home,
- Leaving threatening voicemails, and
- Contacting someone repetitively on the internet.
Other harassment offences, including sexual harassment and workplace harassment, are covered in provincial human rights legislation. Neither are criminal offences on their own, but both can amount to a criminal charge if the circumstances fulfill the elements of criminal harassment or sexual assault.
Whatever the harassing behaviour involves, it must give the complainant good reason to fear for their personal safety in order to constitute criminal harassment. The actions also cannot be derived from lawful authority, such as messages from a peace officer or lawyer.
Criminal harassment is a hybrid offence in Canada, which means the Crown can choose to prosecute it as either a summary conviction offence or an indictable offence, depending on the seriousness of the case and other factors in the criminal court process.
If prosecuted as an indictable offence, criminal harassment carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. If prosecuted summarily, the maximum penalties include up to two years in jail and/or a fine up to $5,000.
Strategic Criminal Defence is a top Google-rated criminal defence firm in Toronto, with over 500 5-star reviews. Our firm, and our experienced legal team, have defended clients in over 10,000 criminal cases. Leveraging our extensive network of lawyers and decades of experience, we craft defence strategies to help those accused of criminal harassment beat the charge.
The lawyers at Strategic Criminal Defence are both highly experienced and dedicated to defending your rights and future in the face of these charges. Contact a Toronto criminal harassment lawyer today by calling (647) 986-8077.
Key Takeaways
- Section 264 of the Criminal Code says that stalking is when you follow, talk to, watch, or threaten someone repeatedly, making them reasonably afraid for their safety.
- It is a hybrid offence, which means that the Crown can choose to charge it as either a summary or an indictable crime.
- If it is tried as an indictable crime, the most you can get is 10 years in prison.
- If someone is prosecuted summarily, they could go to jail for up to two years.
- Some typical common bail conditions could be:
- No contact with the victim
- Staying a certain distance from the complainant’s home or place of work
- Limits on how much you can use the internet and social media
- There could be curfews or requirements to report.
- With the right legal defence, you can definitely beat criminal harassment charges, especially when:
- The contact was reasonable or had a good reason.
- The complainant’s fear wasn’t based on facts.
- There isn’t enough evidence to prove all the parts of the crime.
How can a criminal harassment lawyer in Toronto help?
Our lawyers can help you from the start with precharge legal advice if you find out you’re being investigated.
- We can help you respond to accusations before charges are brought, which might stop charges from being brought at all.
- Strategic Criminal Defence lawyers can help you avoid incriminating yourself by making sure you don’t say anything that could be seen as threatening or obsessive. You don’t have to worry about making things worse by mistake because our team can handle all of your communications with the police and prosecutors.
- Our lawyers can get text messages, emails, social media posts, and location data that might show that what you did was reasonable or had a good reason for being done.
- We might hire professionals to look at digital messages or figure out if the complainant’s fear was reasonable given the circumstances.
- The laws against harassment and how the courts work can be hard to understand. Our team can help. We might even be able to come up with peace bonds or other ways to solve the problem without going to jail.
- If we need to, we can question the Crown’s proof of your intent and whether the complainant’s fear was reasonable during a trial.
Criminal Harassment Charges in the Criminal Code of Canada
According to section 264 of the Criminal Code:
Criminal Harassment
(1) No person shall, without lawful authority and knowing that another person is harassed or recklessly as to whether the other person is harassed, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) that causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.
Prohibited Conduct
(2) The conduct mentioned in subsection (1) consists of:
(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;
(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;
(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or
(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.
Examples of Criminal Harassment Charges
Here are some examples of could lead to Criminal Harassment charges:
- After they break up, the man drives by his ex-girlfriend’s house several times a day, parks across the street to watch her, and sends her dozens of unwanted texts every day. She told him to stop, but he won’t, so now she’s scared to go out alone.
- A woman who got fired makes a lot of fake social media accounts to spy on her old coworker. She sends him threatening messages that make him think she knows when he goes to work and where his kids go to school. This makes him worry about his family’s safety.
- A student keeps following a classmate from class to class, to work, and on the bus home, even though they have been told to stop. They leave notes on their cars and follow them around.
Consequences of a Criminal Harassment Charge
If you are charged with criminal harassment, you could face serious legal consequences that could affect many parts of your life.
Criminal harassment is a hybrid offence, meaning that the Crown can elect to proceed by way of indictment or summary offence. This choice will impact the severity of punishments that you are given, with indictment being the more severe of the two.
Although criminal harassment has no mandatory minimum penalties, the Criminal Code does list the maximum punishments as follows:
- Indictment: Up to 10 years’ imprisonment,
- Summary: Up to 2 years’ less a day imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.
In addition to the immediate penalties resulting from a conviction for criminal harassment, it can have wide-ranging negative consequences on your future. You may have trouble securing employment, especially in roles that require working with children, the elderly, or other vulnerable sectors of society. The lifelong criminal record that results from a conviction can hinder immigration and travel. Finally, because of the nature of criminal harassment charges, your friends and family may perceive you as unworthy of their trust, and it can heavily impact your reputation.
Therefore, even if you intend on accepting responsibility for this type of offence, it is worthwhile to explore your options and consider all the possible penalties. Often, good representation can result in no criminal record. Furthermore, a community-based sentence may be obtained even where the Crown is seeking jail time.
Criminal Harassment Charge Defences
Here are some possible defences which may apply to your situation:
- Factual innocence: This is usually the strongest defence because the facts and the evidence do not support you being there, harassing the person, or other basic elements of the offence.
- Identity: In some circumstances where the offence was not recorded by surveillance footage, or the footage is poor quality, you may be able to raise an identity defence. For example, authorities could have made a mistake in identifying you as the perpetrator based on the poor quality of the footage. In order to effectively raise this defence, you may need corroborative evidence, such as an alibi to where you were at the time of the offence.
- Unreasonable fear: One possible defence for criminal harassment is to challenge the reasonableness of the complainant’s fear. By pointing to your relationship with the complainant as well as the nature, context and history of your communications, we can argue that their fear is unreasonable.
- No intent to cause fear: If you can prove that you were unaware that your behaviour would cause the complainant to fear for their personal safety, and that you did not intend to cause the fear, this can help challenge a criminal harassment charge. You must be able to prove, however, that you did not know it would cause fear, and that you shouldn’t have known that it would.
- Lawful authority: If you had lawful authority to ‘harass’ someone, then you cannot be convicted of criminal harassment. For example, a debt collector calling someone incessantly to obtain owed funds is not criminal, because they have lawful authority to do so.
- Violation of constitutional rights: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out your rights before and after your arrest. If the police fail to abide by these rights, it could aid in your defence.
Criminal Harassment Charge Investigation
Investigations of criminal harassment allegations are typically initiated by the alleged victim. They contact the local Toronto Police Service and report it. The police will request a written statement from the complainant and any witnesses, and will then launch an investigation.
The police will typically engage in a thorough investigation to find sufficient evidence to charge. This may include interviewing all witnesses, reviewing any video surveillance, seizing any evidence involved and photographing the scene.
After the police have gathered their evidence, they will arrest you if they believe you are the perpetrator. If you are not present at the scene, police will track you down or issue a warrant for your arrest.
After you have been charged, police will provide a package with all the evidence they collected, known as the “disclosure package,” to the Crown Prosecutor. You will have the right to access this disclosure package to see the evidence against you. Once you retain one of our lawyers, we will assist you in obtaining the disclosure package, and we will review it with you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Crown’s case, as well as any legal defences that may be available to you.
Bail Conditions for Criminal Harassment Charges
People who are accused of criminal harassment might be able to get out on bail while they wait for their trial or sentencing. Most of the time, the bail conditions for these charges are very strict.
- A no-contact order is the most important bail condition in almost every case. The person who is accused can’t talk to the victim in any way, like by phone, text, email, social media, or messages sent through other people.
- There are also limits on where you can go. Most of the time, you will be told to stay away from the complainant’s home, work, school, or place of worship.
- The person who is accused will usually have to check in with a police station or bail supervisor on a regular basis. You might also have to give up your passport.
If you have been released, it is critical that you follow your conditions. Breaching the terms of your release can result in further charges, as well as a forfeiture of any cash paid to secure your release.
