R. v. M.B.M.

(Calgary Court of Justice - Criminal Harassment). MBM was an accused involved in an unfortunate breakdown of a domestic partnership. Like so many relationship breakdowns, one or both parties was extremely unhappy. Perhaps the most significant tragedy to breakups is that one or both parties carries extreme animus, resentment and hurt; which often translates into inappropriate behaviour. MBM's poison was that the domestic partner was misbehaving and that MBM was simply attempting to manage relationship fallout issues. These types of issues include things such as finances, property and alternate living arrangements. The complainant took the view that the accused was harassing. At no time did the complainant ever express a wish to cease contact.  Rather than expressing this wish, the complainant went to police and showed a cellphone with numerous relatively innocuous or completely appropriate in the circumstances text messages. 

It is no unusual for law enforcement to make a quick assessment of sheer number of text messages without conducting a review of the messages to determine the nature of the message, whether multiple messages are part of a single thought or conversation and the number of messages over time, averaged in a manner to best assess whether the quantity of messages could be logically construed as harassing. By way of example, it is not unusual for testers to send multiple messages to express a single innocuous thought. In present day Twitter world where thought are expressed in 140 characters or less, these kind of texting has become more common. Whether parties are happily in a relationship or not, that kind of messaging is common, not harassing. Since some text message strings might consist of several chat messages to express a single thought, the approach of simply counting the number of text messages to determine harassment is, in the opinion of this Calgary criminal defence lawyer, overly simplistic and not particularly responsible. 

In MBM's case, the number of messages over the period of time that the harassment was alleged to have occurred was not obviously troubling. 

Also, like so many relationships, the dissolved parties will share brief interludes of intimacy. This can cross wires in the relationship breakdown for one or both parties. 

In MBM's case, the accused's Calgary criminal lawyer brought these issues to the attention of the Prosecutor. The Crown agreed to resolve the case peacefully, without the need for MBM to incur the risk of a trial or to shoulder more expensive trial fees. The case as resolved by way of a peace bond and the charges were withdrawn.

It is easy to fall into the trap of oversimplifying a criminal harassment case. Experienced criminal defence lawyers will evaluate the case from the bottom-up and top-down. If you have been charged with criminal harassment, domestic assault or any other crime in Alberta, there are many Alberta criminal lawyers to choose from. David Chow is one of many Calgary criminal lawyers who offers a free initial telephone consultation for criminal law and roadside sanctions matters. Please understand, David Chow only practices in the field of criminal law and roadside sanctions law. He will handle traffic tickets when they are associated with a criminal law case. He may defend some regulatory charges that have a criminal law element -- such as Consumer Protection Act offences.  David runs a boutique law practice and only takes a certain number of cases every year.