What bullshit . Get him out !!
The man's appeal of his five convictions is not obviously doomed, and he has shown he cannot afford a lawyer so one will be appointed, the appeals court said .
A former masseur in Victoria who was found guilty of sexually assaulting several women during therapeutic massages has convinced the Court of Appeal for British Columbia to order funding for his “complex” appeal against his conviction and two-year jail sentence, which is long enough to force his deportation to India at the end.
Ajesh Jacob, who was in his mid-30s at the time of the crimes, is currently in jail and does not have a lawyer.
It will be a complicated file, involving alleged Charter violations of unreasonable delay, judicial errors about appointing court interpreters, and the controversial issue of whether the women complainants were influenced in their testimony by reading each other’s stories on Instagram before the trial.
Jacob was initially charged with 11 counts of sexual assault between May 2019 and March 2021. Two were stayed by the Crown before a trial, in which a judge found him not guilty on four of them, and guilty of five.
Jacob, who immigrated to Canada in 2018, will be deported to India after serving his sentence if it is ultimately for six months or more. His trial judge decided this immigration consequence was not a mitigating factor that would justify a lesser jail term than the two years she imposed. Even his trial lawyer accepted that a sentence of less than six months would not be within the “appropriate range” for five sexual assault convictions, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray wrote.
The major issue at trial was the credibility and reliability of the complainants, specifically “tainting or unconscious contamination of evidence.” Jacob’s defence lawyer argued some of the women “recreated” their stories after hearing details of other complaints.
In a recent ruling, B.C.’s top court said there is no “obvious error” in the trial judge’s sentencing decision. But Jacob’s appeal is not obviously doomed, and he has shown he cannot afford a lawyer, so it is “in the interests of justice to appoint counsel on his behalf.”
All of the complainants but one came forward, sometimes many months after the fact, after seeing a news article or posts on an Instagram account called Survivor Stories, whose administrator urged some to contact police or connected them to a lawyer pursuing a separate civil case against Jacob and the massage business.
At trial last year, Judge Murray found one complainant was a “textbook example of tainting or unconscious contamination … (she) took information she learned from others and made it her own — consciously or unconsciously.”
Another issue was identity, and whether Jacob was in fact the man known to the complainants in the massage clinic and by his name tag as “Sam,” and whether these complaints might actually be about a different employee of Korean ancestry.
nationalpost.com
The man's appeal of his five convictions is not obviously doomed, and he has shown he cannot afford a lawyer so one will be appointed, the appeals court said .
A former masseur in Victoria who was found guilty of sexually assaulting several women during therapeutic massages has convinced the Court of Appeal for British Columbia to order funding for his “complex” appeal against his conviction and two-year jail sentence, which is long enough to force his deportation to India at the end.
Ajesh Jacob, who was in his mid-30s at the time of the crimes, is currently in jail and does not have a lawyer.
It will be a complicated file, involving alleged Charter violations of unreasonable delay, judicial errors about appointing court interpreters, and the controversial issue of whether the women complainants were influenced in their testimony by reading each other’s stories on Instagram before the trial.
Jacob was initially charged with 11 counts of sexual assault between May 2019 and March 2021. Two were stayed by the Crown before a trial, in which a judge found him not guilty on four of them, and guilty of five.
Jacob, who immigrated to Canada in 2018, will be deported to India after serving his sentence if it is ultimately for six months or more. His trial judge decided this immigration consequence was not a mitigating factor that would justify a lesser jail term than the two years she imposed. Even his trial lawyer accepted that a sentence of less than six months would not be within the “appropriate range” for five sexual assault convictions, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray wrote.
The major issue at trial was the credibility and reliability of the complainants, specifically “tainting or unconscious contamination of evidence.” Jacob’s defence lawyer argued some of the women “recreated” their stories after hearing details of other complaints.
In a recent ruling, B.C.’s top court said there is no “obvious error” in the trial judge’s sentencing decision. But Jacob’s appeal is not obviously doomed, and he has shown he cannot afford a lawyer, so it is “in the interests of justice to appoint counsel on his behalf.”
All of the complainants but one came forward, sometimes many months after the fact, after seeing a news article or posts on an Instagram account called Survivor Stories, whose administrator urged some to contact police or connected them to a lawyer pursuing a separate civil case against Jacob and the massage business.
At trial last year, Judge Murray found one complainant was a “textbook example of tainting or unconscious contamination … (she) took information she learned from others and made it her own — consciously or unconsciously.”
Another issue was identity, and whether Jacob was in fact the man known to the complainants in the massage clinic and by his name tag as “Sam,” and whether these complaints might actually be about a different employee of Korean ancestry.
B.C. masseur wins funding to appeal sex assault sentence that would have forced his deportation
The appeals court ordered funding for his ‘complex’ appeal against his conviction and sentence, which would see him deported to India after.
nationalpost.com
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