Law360 Canada (July 6, 2026, 11:15 AM EDT) --

John L. Hill

The Alberta Court of Appeal has delivered a powerful reminder that criminal convictions cannot rest on suspicion alone, acquitting Jatinder Singh after finding that the evidence left too many unanswered questions to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision in R. v. Singh, 2026 ABCA 219 held that the trial judge failed to apply the Supreme Court of Canada’s guidance on reasonable inferences in criminal cases.

Singh served as general manager of Fancy Windows from April 2019 until his dismissal for cause on Dec. 30, 2021. In that role, he oversaw the company’s day-to-day operations. After his termination, he was charged with theft over $5,000 after the company alleged that he had accepted cash payments from customers, kept the money for himself and altered company records to conceal the thefts.

The allegations arose after the company’s production manager and minority shareholder, Kelly Cheung, became concerned upon learning that several customer files were missing. He conducted his own investigation by comparing production orders with the company’s computerized accounting records. Cheung theorized that Singh had accepted cash payments from customers and deleted the corresponding orders from the accounting system after production had begun, thereby preventing invoices from being generated and allowing Singh to keep the cash.

To test this theory, Cheung searched the company’s accounting system using order numbers, customer names, invoice amounts and estimated order values. When he could not locate certain orders, he concluded they had been deleted. He then contacted customers, several of whom reported paying in cash. Screenshots from the accounting system were introduced to support his findings.

The investigation, however, had significant shortcomings. Cheung had no accounting training or experience, did not consult the company’s accounting staff or an outside forensic accountant, and did not review the company’s banking records or cash logbook. His search methods were also incomplete. He admitted that some searches excluded invoices with outstanding balances, failed to account for customer discounts and sometimes overlooked the possibility that customers’ names had been entered differently in the accounting system. These deficiencies raised the possibility that some supposedly missing orders had not actually been deleted.

Initially, Cheung identified 23 transactions he believed demonstrated Singh’s theft. During the trial, however, the Crown conceded that the evidence did not establish theft in 20 of those transactions. In several instances, there was no evidence that Singh had received cash, and in others, the accounting records or investigative methods were too unreliable to substantiate the allegations. Cheung also acknowledged that other transactions he had initially considered suspicious were later shown to have been properly paid.

The remaining three transactions formed the basis of the prosecution. Notably, in two of those transactions, the customer orders had not been deleted from the accounting system and invoices had been issued, contrary to the central theory of the investigation. In one case, the customer testified that she proposed paying cash in exchange for a discount, and the individual identified as “J.P.” signed the quotation acknowledging receipt of the cash payment.

To establish that Fancy Windows had not received payment for the three transactions, the Crown relied primarily on Cheung’s evidence that he found no record of payment in the company’s database, together with testimony from Mr. Grewal, one of the company’s majority owners. Grewal testified that he believed customers had paid the company, but the money had never been deposited. However, no accounting records, banking records, forensic accounting evidence or testimony from accounting staff was produced to corroborate that belief. Although Grewal referred to an accounting printout, it was never entered into evidence.

Cheung also testified about the company’s procedures for handling cash payments. According to him, employees who received cash were responsible for safeguarding it until it was deposited. Cash left overnight was kept in a locked drawer accessible only to Singh and an accounting employee. Cash payments were recorded in a physical logbook before being forwarded to the accounting department. Despite the logbook’s importance, Cheung did not examine it during his investigation, and it was not introduced as evidence at trial.

After hearing the evidence, the trial judge accepted the testimony of Cheung and Grewal as credible and reliable. The judge concluded that Singh had stolen more than $5,000 by retaining cash from customers for three window orders instead of remitting it to Fancy Windows. Singh was therefore convicted of theft over $5,000.

The Court of Appeal allowed Jatinder Singh’s appeal, concluding that the convictions for theft over $5,000 were unreasonable because the Crown’s case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence that did not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court began by reviewing the legal test for unreasonable verdicts. A conviction may be set aside where no properly instructed trier of fact, acting judicially, could reasonably have reached the verdict. In assessing whether a verdict is unreasonable, an appellate court must independently review the evidence and, to some extent, reweigh it, while respecting the criminal standard of proof. The court relied on R. v. Yebes, [1987] 2 S.C.R. 168; R. v. Biniaris, 2000 SCC 15; and R. v. Sheppard, 2002 SCC 26 for these principles.

The court emphasized that this case turned entirely on circumstantial evidence and that the governing authority was the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v. Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33. Villaroman requires a trial judge to consider whether guilt is the only reasonable inference from the evidence and warns against “filling in the blanks” by drawing speculative inferences of guilt when other reasonable explanations remain. If a reasonable inference consistent with innocence exists, the Crown has not met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court found that the trial judge failed to apply the analytical framework required by Villaroman. Although the reasons were extensive, they neither cited Villaroman nor showed that the trial judge considered whether alternative reasonable inferences arose from the evidence. Instead, the judge repeatedly accepted the Crown’s theory without adequately addressing significant evidentiary gaps.

The court identified three essential issues the Crown was required to prove: (1) that Fancy Windows had not received the cash payments from the customers; (2) that Singh had appropriated those funds for his own use; and (3) that he did so without lawful authority. Only the final element was effectively uncontested. The court concluded that the evidence was insufficient on the questions of deprivation and conversion.

The court found there was remarkably little evidence that the company had actually failed to receive the disputed cash payments.

No bank records, deposit books, accounting records or forensic accounting evidence were introduced to establish that the payments were never deposited. The accounting employee responsible for recording deposits was not called as a witness, and the accountant referred to by one of the company’s owners never testified. The “printout” said to support the investigation was never entered into evidence.

Instead, the Crown relied almost exclusively on Cheung’s conclusion that he could not locate payment records within the accounting system. The court held that the trial judge failed to consider whether this apparent absence of records resulted from deficiencies in Cheung’s investigative methods rather than actual missing payments. This omission was particularly significant because the Crown had abandoned 20 of the original 23 allegations after recognizing similar flaws in Cheung’s investigation.

The court also rejected the trial judge’s reliance upon the company’s cash logbook.

Although the trial judge reasoned that Singh had the opportunity to omit cash entries from the logbook, the evidence established that Cheung had neither examined the logbook during his investigation nor consulted accounting staff about it. The logbook itself was never entered into evidence.

The court held there was no evidentiary foundation for inferring that entries were missing from the logbook or that Singh was responsible for any omissions. This reasoning illustrated the precise danger identified in Villaroman of improperly “filling in the blanks” in the Crown’s case.

The court also concluded that there was inadequate evidence that Singh converted the cash to his own use.

The trial judge relied partly on electronic transfers between Singh’s personal bank accounts. However, those transfers neither matched the amounts nor the timing of the alleged thefts, and there was no evidence that equivalent cash deposits were made into Singh’s accounts.

Rather than recognizing this lack of evidence, the trial judge reasoned that cash transactions are inherently difficult to trace and concluded that the absence of matching deposits did not create a reasonable doubt.

The court held that this reasoning improperly shifted the burden of proof onto Singh and failed to consider the obvious possibility that the e-transfers were unrelated to the alleged offences.

The court further held that the trial judge failed to consider reasonable alternative explanations for any missing money.

The accounting employee responsible for processing deposits, Roshini, had access to the cash and accounting records but was neither interviewed during the company’s investigation nor called as a witness. The trial judge dismissed defence arguments that several individuals handled the funds without meaningfully examining whether another employee could have been responsible.

Villaroman requires that such reasonable alternative inferences be considered before guilt may be inferred from circumstantial evidence.

The court also found problems with the evidence concerning Singh’s alleged ability to delete customer orders.

The trial judge accepted hearsay evidence from Cheung that only three employees could delete orders, based on an alleged statement by a software developer. The software developer never testified.

The trial judge also accepted Cheung’s evidence that no orders were deleted after Singh’s dismissal. The court found that evidence unclear and internally inconsistent. Moreover, even if no further deletions occurred, another equally reasonable inference was that whoever had been deleting orders stopped after Singh left the company. The trial judge never addressed that possibility.

The court concluded that the trial judge repeatedly drew inferences unsupported by the evidence, overlooked reasonable alternative explanations and effectively shifted portions of the burden of proof to Singh. These errors were inconsistent with the approach mandated by the Supreme Court in Villaroman, which governed the assessment of wholly circumstantial cases.

After independently reviewing the evidence, the court held that Singh’s guilt had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and that the verdict was therefore unreasonable.

Relying on R. v. Benn, 2026 ABCA 14, which in turn applied R. v. Spencer, 2020 ONCA 838, the court concluded that a new trial could not cure the evidentiary deficiencies. Because the Crown’s evidence was legally insufficient to support the convictions, the court quashed the convictions and entered acquittals.

John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a JD from Queen’s and an LLM in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.

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