A lawyer for a Prince George teacher convicted last month of sexual assault told a B.C. Supreme Court judge on Monday, Dec. 9 that his client wants to delay sentencing and apply to stay the charge because of court delays.
On Nov. 20, Justice Simon Coval convicted Brendan Tomas Boylan, 38, of sexually assaulting a woman he lived with in 2018 in Prince George. The woman testified in court that they had a consensual sexual encounter, but Boylan refused to stop when she asked. As a result, Boylan caused her to suffer injuries.
Defence lawyer Jon Duncan said he is seeking three court days in March to make the application under the section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that states anyone charged with an offence has the right to be tried within a reasonable time.
Boylan was charged in November 2020 and his trial began in April 2023. Coval heard evidence intermittently until Sept. 27 of this year.
In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada set time limits. Lawyers for a B.C. man charged with drug trafficking, Barrett Richard Jordan, successfully argued trial delays breached his Charter rights to a timely trial.
“The presumptive ceiling is 18 months for cases tried in the provincial court, and 30 months for cases in the superior court (or cases tried in the provincial court after a preliminary inquiry),” said the high court ruling. “Delay attributable to or waived by the defence does not count towards the presumptive ceiling.”
Duncan said he has not heard back from the trial scheduler about available dates in March. He told the court that he provided April and May dates, if necessary. He also indicated that his office started ordering trial transcripts for use in the Charter application, but he is having difficulty obtaining them in a timely fashion.
“Some other files that I'm involved with, there’s months-long delays,” Duncan said. “So we're very concerned about that, given that it could delay the Jordan application. That’s one of the reasons we want to go before Justice Coval as quickly as possible.”
Justice Ronald Tindale adjourned the matter to Monday, Dec. 16 for a case management conference.
The B.C. government’s online registry of teachers shows Boylan signed an undertaking on Nov. 22 to not practise, “pending resolution of a matter before the commissioner or a hearing panel under Part 6 of the Teachers Act.”
