Assault is the most common criminal charge in Canada. Often, once the case goes to court the charges are withdrawn, stayed, peace bond, absolute or conditional discharged.
In many cases, a full conviction is given and it can be considered a summary or indictable offence depending on the severity of the situation.
Many people who are charged with assault, assume the charge will disappear, especially if there was a peace bond or it was withdrawn. However, as you can see from the email below, an assault charge that did not finish in a conviction can still get in the way of employment and travel:
“I had a quick question. In 2005 I was wrongfully charged with assault, and the charges were later dropped. To make the process go quicker, I signed a peace bond at the advice of my lawyer who assured me such things would not appear on my record. I didn’t mind as I am a law abiding citizen. The Crown Prosecutor was happy with, and even stated that this situation was likely the fault of the girl who initially pressed charges as she fled the province shortly after. I am currently taking my RN (Starting in January 2010) and I had no issues getting a vulnerable sectors check done through the Edmonton Police. This year however, when I went to the RCMP, the peace bond did indeed show up in box 4. This was a little concerning as you can imagine.”
“Now I am in my last semester, and I need to get a record check done before graduation, but I am concerned that this will be a problem. I do not want to get removed from the program or lose my job obviously, and because the record hasn’t shown before it hasn’t been an issue. As the peace bond and withdrawal of charges happened over 10 years, I was wondering if these can be removed promptly? Also what costs would be associated with doing such a thing? I am obviously working with a limited time frame here and feel quite blind-sided by such a thing.”
This person requires a file destruction to remove the prints, photos, court and police records from the system. Even though the charge was 10 years old and was withdrawn, it is still getting in the way.
A Pardon or Record Suspension would be required if the assault charge was a conviction.
