The Court of Appeal of Newfoundland and Labrador ordered a new trial after finding that a police-database entry linking an accused to an address had been improperly used as evidence that he lived there.
In R. v. Moylett, 2026 NLCA 22, the unanimous court quashed Andrew Moylett’s convictions for armed robbery, possession of a weapon for the purpose of committing an offence, and being disguised with intent to commit an indictable offence. The decision was delivered orally on May 19, 2026, with written reasons filed June 24.
The court did not enter acquittals. It held that the evidentiary error required a new trial, while leaving other appeal grounds and a fresh-evidence application undecided.
Identity was the central issue
The trial concerned a December 2020 robbery at a St. John’s club. Two masked people entered, a knife was used, and the robbers left with cash from a safe. The disputed question was whether Moylett was one of them.
The case against him was largely circumstantial. A police officer testified that he recognized Moylett in security footage. His DNA, together with that of four other people, was found on a lighter in a jacket similar to one worn by a robber.
A backpack containing material apparently connected with the robbery was later found in a residential backyard. A police officer testified that a database placed Moylett at the neighbouring property around the time of the robbery. Moylett disputed that he had lived there, and defence counsel objected to the Crown’s reliance on the address.
A bad-character warning did not resolve hearsay
Justice Glen L.C. Noel, writing for the court, explained that an out-of-court statement used to prove its contents is hearsay. Such evidence is presumptively inadmissible unless a recognized exception applies. Under the principled exception, the party relying on it must establish necessity and sufficient reliability on a balance of probabilities.
The trial judge had held a preliminary hearing and warned jurors not to treat the database entry as proof of bad character. But that process did not address whether the address entry could properly be used for its truth or whether a hearsay exception justified its admission.
The Crown had not sought admission under the common-law business-records exception or the principled exception. It also had not met the requirements identified by the appeal court for admission under the statutory business-records provision.
The Crown acknowledged on appeal that the error was significant and did not ask the court to preserve the verdicts through the Criminal Code’s curative proviso.
New trial rather than acquittals
The address evidence mattered because jurors could have treated proximity to the recovered backpack as a link between Moylett and the robbers. The Crown relied on it in closing submissions, and the trial judge repeated that reliance in the final jury instructions.
The error was not harmless, and the remaining evidence was not so overwhelming that conviction was inevitable. But this was not a case with no evidence on which a properly instructed trier of fact could reasonably convict. The court therefore quashed the convictions and ordered a new trial rather than acquittals.
