Crown:  D. Hogan, Office of the Crown Attorney, Toronto
Defence:  Craig Penney, Toronto Child Pornography Lawyer

¶ 1  CROWN:  Good morning, Your Worship. It is Hogan, initial D. I appear on behalf of the provincial Crown, with respect to our matter of Mr. R., which is before Your Worship today.

¶ 2  MR PENNEY:  Good morning again Your Worship. It is Penney, P-E-N-N-E-Y, initial C. This is Mr. R. before the Court.

¶ 3  THE COURT:  Okay, and what is happening?

¶ 4  CROWN:  Yes, Your Worship, this was a matter that was originally assigned to one of my colleagues, and was set for trial over a number of days through October and November. A Charter application was filed by Mr Penney on behalf of Mr. R., and it was handed to me to deal with in my colleague’s absence. And so I began reviewing that, which led to a greater review of the entire file. The end result of my review of all the materials was this, that there are concerns from the Crown’s perspective based on both the Charter application and the substantive merits of the case. They are both issues which would be on the line one way or another — whether the Crown could say there was a reasonable prospect of conviction, but in combination of the two, the issues with regards to reasonable prospect of conviction on the substantive charges as well as concerns that were raised by Mr Penney through his Charter application — on the Charter application. The end result is that I reached the conclusion, with respect to this matter, after a full review of the entirety of it, and in consultation with Mr Penney and the officers and the senior Crown in our office, that there is no reasonable prospect of conviction with respect to these matters, and the Crown will be asking that they be marked withdrawn pleas...

¶ 5  THE COURT:  So there is one charge to be withdrawn.

¶ 6  CROWN:  That is correct.

¶ 7  MR PENNEY:  One charge.

¶ 8  THE COURT:  Marked withdrawn.

¶ 9  MR PENNEY:  No comments, Your Worship. Thank you.

¶ 10  THE COURT:  Okay, thank you.