R v D.R., 2018 ONCJ 900

This was a section 445.1 and 445(2) Criminal Code case concerning a 16-year-old youth who killed a rabbit at his group home. After getting into an argument with a staff member, the accused went outside, climbed into an enclosure in which rabbits were kept and removed a rabbit before strangling him/her to death.

The accused raised the common law defence of necessity, arguing that he killed the rabbit because he/she was very cold and staff would not let him inside with the rabbit to warm him/her up. In rejecting this defence, the court referred to the three requirements in R. v. Perka, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 232: there must be imminent peril; the accused must have had no reasonable legal alternative to the course of action he or she undertook; and there must be proportionality between the harm inflicted and the harm avoided.

In finding the accused guilty the court considered in detail the case law on the terms “unnecessary” and “wilfully”.

For sentencing, see D.R. [2019] O.J. No. 4177