An Ontario judge has remained charges against a accused children’s predator who faces a “strong” case, saying that the miscarriage and the treatment of officers to the defendant meant that it was necessary to stop the procedure to protect the integrity of the justice system.
The Toronto police service arrested Simitkumar Patel at 9:35 am from March 9, 2023.
Patel supposedly believed that he had been talking in line with a 13 -year -old girl named Amelie, but after he arrived at the York Mills de Toronto center hoping to meet her, was confronted by the police and arrested.
In the days after the operation of sting, the judge of Ontario, David Porter, said that the police and the prison staff lied to Patel, questioned him incorrectly, did not give adequate access to a lawyer, let him go hungry when he deny him the vegetarian food and did not ensure that he appeared in court quickly.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Det. Guy Kama also gave a “false or misleading” testimony in court, according to Porter.
“The police really ruined this,” Jeff Hershberg, a criminal defense lawyer who is not involved in the case, told CBC News.
“When you have a confluence of errors and lie on the stand, trying to deceive a judge, the only result that should come is the dismissal of the charges,” said Hershberg.
Patel faced four criminal charges, including attracting a child, making child pornography and having child pornography. His lawyer, Stephanie Digiuseppe, refused to comment on the registration. Kama did not respond to CBC News consultations.
In its March 31 ruling, Porter concluded that the case against Patel “would seem to be strong”, but a stay was necessary. The stay followed a defense request in which Patel’s lawyer asked the court to discover that his rights were violated.
“The totality of the violations of the letter and the miscarriage is so offensive for the social notions of clean play and decency that proceeding with a judgment before that behavior would be harmful to the integrity of the justice system,” Porter said.
Police made an inappropriate interrogation: judge
Patel did not talk to a lawyer for approximately two hours after his arrest, according to Porter’s ruling. Kama told the court that he had a special cell phone and would have let Patel use it to contact a lawyer, while they were still in the York Mills Center, If Patel had insisted.
Porter rejected this evidence. In his ruling, he described how Kama asked Patel during the arrest if he wanted to call a lawyer “now”, to which Patel replied: “Yes. Clear. Clear.”
Instead of making arrangements to speak with a lawyer, Kama told him that he could talk to a lawyer once they arrived at a police station.
Then, the police led Patel to 32 division and interviewed him, where Patel told the officers: “I don’t want to talk about that, talk about anything.” Kama told Patel that he was not obliged to talk to him, according to Porter’s ruling, but wanted to learn more about him.
“I told you … We weren’t here to get you test, because we already have it,” Kama told Patel, according to an excerpt from his conversation contained in Porter’s ruling.
But Kama was lying, Porter said, using a tactic that “hit the heart of the fundamental rights of Mr. Patel” and intentionally violating his right to remain silent while the police worked to strengthen the case against him.
TPS spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer said in an email that the service investigates after receiving a decision in which a judge criticizes the officer’s conduct. She confirmed that Kama is a detective in division 51, but would not say if he remains in active duty.
Ian Johnstone, a lawyer who has served as a disciplinary prosecutor for TPS and other police services, said the TPS Professional Standards Unit Probably review transcripts to Determine if they agree with the evaluation of a judge of the officer’s conduct.
“Sometimes it is the way the facts come out,” Johnstone said. “A judge in fact could see him in a way. Sometimes, another judge in fact could see it in a different way.”
The former president of the Toronto Police Service Board, Alok Mukherjee, explains how Ontario legislation only allows officers to be fired in a close set of circumstances.
The suspect’s family remained in the dark
Patel supposedly spoke in line with Kama, getting through “Amelie”, 13, according to Porter’s ruling, during which he claimed to have had oral sex with a 15 -year -old girl.
Kama asked Patel during the interview if he had ever touched a child for sexual reasons, a crime for which he was not accused of Patel, but then told the court that he was not investigating Patel for an additional crime.
Again, Porter found Kama’s testimony “It’s not credible” Writing in his ruling that the officer admitted that a step in a sexual interference investigation is to ask someone if he has ever committed the crime.
Porter also said that the police are obliged to inform a detained person when an investigation expands.
“It is clear that a defendant has the right to know the entire basis for his detention and the possible danger, in order to significantly exercise his right S.10 (b) to advise,” he wrote.
Patel spent the night of March 9 in custody in Division 32 of Toronto, where officers rejected their requests to allow him to contact his family, according to Porter’s ruling. Vegetarian and a Hindu, Patel said he did not receive solid food that he could eat while he was there, even after telling an officer twice that he could not eat a chicken sandwich.
Patel’s family, meanwhile, did not know where he was until March 10, which led his brother to fly from Kelowna to Toronto, according to Porter’s ruling.
‘Continuous contempt’ for the rights of the suspect
Porter said the police did not comply with his obligation under the Criminal Code to ensure that Patel appeared before the court after his arrest, citing a judgment of the Court of Appeals of Ontario that said Such appearance protects the rights of a defendant by ensuring that a court can monitor his arrest.
But Porter discovered that Kama made little effort to ensure that Patel appeared in court on March 9, since he wanted his bail audience to postpone for two days to allow the police to register his house.
Armed with the information of his chats as “Amelie”, Kama could have obtained an order and register Patel’s house in mid -morning on March 10, Porter found. Instead, Kama took a “casual” Focus to obtain a court order, Porter said, and began to write the request at 6 am on March 10.
The police obtained an arrest warrant that morning and completed their search just after 2 in the afternoon.
Around 5 p.m. on Friday, March 10, Patel appeared remotely in the court’s court, where a peace judge said the court did not have time to deal with his matter and postponed the case until March 13, after the weekend.
The fact that Kama did not diligently obtain a court order and inform the crown that the search was complete “reflects continuous contempt for the rights of Mr. Patel by DC Kama and that, in fact, it resulted in his continuous arrest until March 13,” Porter said.
The additional time of Patel in custody, added the judge, “may have been avoided if the police fulfilled their obligation … and the issue of their bond had been directed in the Court on March 9”.
Hard conditions in the detention center
After his appearance in the Court, Patel was arrested at the southern detention center of Toronto, according to Porter’s ruling, Where he said he was wanted by the stripes in view of a male and female officer.
Patel said he slept in a mattress on the floor of a cell full of food and spent with ants. The personnel of the detention center did not offer Patel without food the night that arrived, according to Porter’s ruling. He drank milk but could not eat the food they offered him the next day, since he had eggs. As a result, Patel said he had no solid food between his arrest on March 9 and March 12, when he received foods that met their dietary restrictions.
The judges of the Ontario Court have repeatedly criticized the conditions within the detention centers of the province. In a ruling last year, the judge of Ontario, Brock Jones, described the conditions within the detention center of Southern Toronto as “inhuman”, saying that the experienced defense lawyers “repeatedly” were told “that it is extremely difficult to have significant contact” with the clients arrested in the installation.
Brent Ross, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General, who supervises the detention centers of the province, declined to comment when he was contacted by CBC News, saying that the Patel issue could still be appealed.
Patel was released on bail at 8 pm on March 13, 2023 and the charges were suspended approximately two years later. As of April 14, 2025, a spokesman for the Court of Appeals said there was no appeal in the archive. A spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General would not say if the prosecutors planned to appeal Jones’s decision.
