The appeal against a Saskatoon Queen’s Bench decision to stay a manslaughter charge in a case of a father accused in the death of his baby daughter in 2016 has been upheld. It was alleged the then 27 year old passed out in his daughter’s crib, asphyxiating her.

Around 8 in the morning on January 29th of 2016, Saskatoon Police received a call about an unresponsive baby girl. She was pronounced dead at the hospital and a 27 year old man was arrested and charged with several breaches of Conditional Sentence Orders, then following an investigation, he was charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessities of life.

The Appeal Court’s report reads that the central issue is whether the trial judge erred by imposing a stay of proceedings pre-trial, on the basis of voir dire evidence only, because video evidence of the accused from the morning of the offence had been destroyed. The decision was that the trial judge was correct in deciding the man’s trial was prejudiced without the video evidence.