Children & Criminal Law

Description:
This Zoom CPD will touch on many topics regarding children and criminal law, including best practices for police officers when interviewing children, practical tips when preparing for trials involving children, developing rapport with child witnesses, legal principles regarding the treatment of children’s evidence in criminal trials and how to cross-examine child witnesses effectively without alienating the judge or jury or causing psychological harm to the child. This CPD will be of interest to criminal lawyers (both defence and Crown) as well as lawyers who work with children involved with the criminal justice system. There will be time allotted for the speakers to take questions from participants via the Zoom chat function. This CPD has been approved for 3.0 hours by the Law Society of British Columbia and may be applied towards the mandatory 12 hour Continuing Professional Development requirement in both BC and Yukon.

Cpl. Kelly Manweiller has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Winnipeg with a double major in Justice and Law Enforcement and Conflict Resolution Studies.  She has been a RCMP officer for the past 21 years. She started her career in Northern Manitoba for the first 9 years, serving in both Norway House and Swan River Detachments prior to moving to the Yukon in 2008. While in the Yukon, Cpl Manweiller oversaw C Watch for a year, then moved to the Major Crime Unit for 3 years, from there she assisted in establishing the Specialized Response Unit whose mandate was to oversee and assist with sexualized assaults, domestic violence, child abuse and elder abuse investigation, and after another 3-year term went back to the Major Crime Unit for a year, then returned to Whitehorse Detachment to the General Investigation Section for 2 years and then finally back to general duty policing and overseeing B Watch now for the past 2 years.

Throughout her service Cpl. Manweiller has been passionate about working with survivors of sexualized assault, domestic violence and child abuse. Cpl. Manweiller was fortunate enough to take her first training in interviewing children in 2001 and has been mentoring other members in child interviewing throughout her service. Cpl. Manweiller is Step-Wise child interview trained and a Step-Wise Instructor. Cpl. Manweiller also has the honour of being on the Board of Directions for the Yukon Women’s Transition Home – Kaushee’s Place and Betty’s Haven. She is the proud mother of 2 boys (aged 19 & 15) and 3 dogs. She is an avid outdoors person and can often be found hiking the beautiful trails in and around Marsh Lake.

Noel Sinclair is a retired N.W.T fishing guide who graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1993. For the first 9 years of his legal career Noel worked in private practice in Yellowknife and on Vancouver Island, focusing mainly on criminal law defence cases, family law litigation, child protection and other occasional solicitor’s work – stamping and signing-off on documents prepared by hard-working legal assistants.

Noel joined the Federal Prosecution Service (now the PPSC) as Crown Counsel in 2002 and has since then focused on criminal prosecutions across the Northern region from Pangnirtung to Beaver Creek. He currently serves as General Counsel for the PPSC Yukon Regional Office and is active as a trial and appellant lawyer at all levels of court in the Yukon. Noel is a past member of the Sexual Assault Response Committee and played an active role in the development of the Lynx Program for supporting child victims and witnesses.

He is regarded by many of his colleagues in the bar as an uncompromising, intransigent but otherwise good-natured prosecutor who is often incorrect and unsuccessful, but never uncertain.

Simon Renouf received his LL.B. degree (with distinction) from the University of Alberta in 1989.  He had received a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1971.

During his studies at the University of Alberta Simon received the George Bligh O’Connor Silver Medal, the Peter Lougheed Scholarship, the Chief Justice S. Bruce Smith Prize, the Parlee Scholarship, the W. Bernie Kelly, Q.C. Memorial Prize, and other prizes in labour law, contract law, administrative law, trusts and criminal law.

In the 1970s Simon was a staff member with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) where he participated in collective bargaining, prepared and presented the union’s position in numerous interest arbitrations, conducted legislative liaison and lobbying and taught part-time labour courses at both Niagara and Humber Colleges.

From 1979 to 1985 Simon was executive director of United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) where he was chief negotiator for many rounds of collective bargaining, including province wide hospital strikes in 1980 and 1982.From 1985 to 1989, Simon was director of his own consulting company which provided collective bargaining and related services to unions and faculty associations.

Since 1990 Simon has been a member of the Alberta bar.  He is a member of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association. Simon acts as trial and appellate defence counsel in criminal cases.  He has appeared at all levels of court in Alberta, the Yukon Territorial Court and in the Supreme Court of Canada. In addition to his criminal law practice, Simon represents clients in professional conduct and administrative law matters before the courts and numerous federal and provincial administrative tribunals.

From 1992 to 2007 Simon was a Sessional Instructor with the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta.  He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2000.

From 1998 to 2002 Simon was an elected Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta serving on the executive and virtually all committees, and as a member or chair of numerous disciplinary panels.  Simon chaired the Law Society’s Legal Aid negotiations committee.  He was also the Law Society representative on the law faculty council at the University of Alberta and on the board of directors of the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA).