Law360 Canada ( June 13, 2025, 3:52 PM EDT) -- Appeal by Kinamore from a judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal affirming his conviction for sexual assault. The complainant was 16 years old when she met Kinamore who was 22 years old. The parties used social media platforms as their primary method of communication. At trial, the complainant testified that she met with Kinamore at his apartment. She testified that Kinamore started having sexual intercourse with her against her will. In contrast, Kinamore testified that the sexual encounter was consensual. Social media messages exchanged between the parties were key pieces of evidence at trial. The Crown and the defence relied on these messages during examinations, creating viva voce evidence about the parties in the process. Although some of the messages were explicitly sexual in nature, the Crown introduced screenshots of the messages to lead evidence of the complainant’s virginity and her disinterest in a sexual relationship with Kinamore. The defence argued that some of the complainant’s prior messages contradicted her testimony that she was not sexually interested in Kinamore. No voir dire was held. The trial judge relying heavily on that evidence found Kinamore guilty of sexual assault. Kinamore argued that the judge erred in admitting the Crown-led evidence of the prior communications between the parties without a voir dire and by breaching the rule against the admission of prior consistent statements by relying on the complainant’s social media messages to determine the issue of consent. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Before the Court, Kinamore renewed both arguments. The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred by admitting the messages that involved explicit sexual conversations without a voir dire but disagreed that messages containing the complainant’s prior indications of disinterest in a sexual relationship were presumptively inadmissible. It argued that the curative proviso could apply with respect to any error committed by the trial judge on that issue....