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| John L. Hill |
Boakye had met the complainant on Tinder and, during the late summer and fall of 2019, she fell in love with him. She dropped out of school and moved in with Boakye even though she was told that her new boyfriend was in the business of “selling girls.”
She so wanted to please Boakye that on their first night together, she provided sexual services to one of Boakye’s customers. After that, he became her agent, posting advertisements, booking hotel rooms, driving the complainant to appointments and communicating with clients on her behalf.
The love affair diminished as the complainant became more resentful of her treatment. Boakye’s anger was quickly aroused; he would throw things at her, push her up against the wall, and drag her around. She accused
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When the matter came to trial in the Superior Court of Justice, the trial judge acquitted Boakye on the human trafficking charges but found him guilty of the assault counts. In his reasons, the trial judge accepted that the complainant was highly infatuated with Boakye and was subject to an extreme power imbalance in their relationship. A photograph convinced him that the complainant had suffered at least one cigarette burn to her skin inflicted by Boakye. The judge further considered a video of Boakye having the complainant enter a cage. However, the lack of corroborating evidence (she had deleted emails) about the human trafficking charges and the complainant’s testimonial inconsistencies and bringing up allegations for the first time at trial left the judge feeling it would be unsafe to convict on the trafficking charges. He was acquitted on those counts but sentenced to ten months for the assault causing bodily harm charge and four and a half months consecutive for the assault.
Nonetheless, Boakye appealed the conviction and sentence. He claimed that the trial judge erred in imposing consecutive sentences and failed to apply the totality principle.
The Ontario Court of Appeal heard the matter on Feb. 13, 2025, and a written decision was handed down a week later (R. v. Boakye, 2025 ONCA 105).
The Appeal Court noted that while the trial judge could have better explained why he accepted some of the complainant’s allegations but rejected others, the court deferred to the trial judge as the best arbiter of fact (R. v. G.F., 2021 SCC 20) and agreed that deficiencies in a trial judge’s credibility analysis are rare and do not warrant appellate intervention (R. v. A.M., 2014 ONCA 769).
This case was distinguishable from R. v. N.P., 2022 ONCA 597 and R. v. Howe (2005), 193 CCC (3d) 480 (Ont. C.A.) in that the trial judge did not reject the complainant’s evidence on points critical to her narrative about the assault charges. He did not find that she had lied on a material matter or had a motive to accuse the appellant falsely. He found that her evidence on those counts could not meet the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Appeal Court also rejected the defence counsel’s assertion that the trial judge’s reasons were insufficient. Even though the reasoning could have been more thorough, the Supreme Court has held that a “trial judge [is] not required to ‘set out every finding or conclusion in the process of arriving at the verdict,’ nor [do they] have to detail [their] finding on each piece of evidence before [them]” (R. v. T.J.F., 2024 SCC 38). The trial judge accepted sufficient evidence to support convictions on the assault charges.
The sentence appeal was also dismissed. The incidents of assault were separate, and there was not such a close nexus between the assault and the bodily harm charge to warrant concurrent sentences. Such a decision is also entitled to considerable deference (R. v. T.C., 2024 ONCA 304).
The 14.5-month sentence is within an acceptable range for such offences. The appellant’s decision to contest his conviction at trial and on appeal does not entitle him to any mitigation for remorse.
In granting deference to the trial judge’s reasoning on conviction and finding nothing to warrant intervention on appeal, the sentence and conviction appeals were dismissed.
John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a J.D. from Queen’s and an LL.M. in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.
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