okay, trying this again.
New to the board, and reading comments so thought I would add my comments:
1. Tomorrow's court appearance will be strictly remand. If in London, as reported, it will occur either by videoconference in courtroom 12 at 9:00 am [the public will not likely get in as the courtroom is extremely small] or in person, then courtroom 9 or 10 is the most likely. Court theoretically at 9:30 a.m. is actually more like 10:00 a.m. The reason for London if so is many: no need to drain transportation police resources to Sarnia for straight remands from EMDC, enhanced security, videoconferencing abilities directly from EMDC to the courthouse.
2. There will be no plea tomorrow, nor expect one for some time. There are a number of procedural steps which must take place before a plea can be entered, particularly in Superior Court matters. Superior Court is far more formal than most criminal matters handled by the Ontario General Division.
Procedural steps include: 1) the accuseds must apply for and qualify for legal aid [this is by way of an application including financials]. This can take anywhere from 1-2 weeks onwards depending on the busyness of the local legal aid office. Generally, sadly, these applications will be fast tracked. 2) the accuseds must find lawyers willing to take their case [this is not as easy as you'd think as s 231 offences are not done by everyone], 3) there must be a bail hearing set [unless accuseds wave them] which, in London's timelines would be at least 4-6 weeks post request. 4) most bail hearings are not set until at least basic disclosure is provided to counsel-estimate that timeline for the really basic stuff at 2-3 months [the videos, witness statements, expert reports, etc will all trickle in over 6-8 months following-remember the crown has to review all this, after police superiors have reviewed it, etc, etc....the meat of disclosure takes time.
On top of all this, the charges are first degree, plus whatever will be added (IMHO there are more charges pending] and no lawyer doing their job will advise their client to plead without seeing the case. So don't assume right away that just because the accuseds are not pleading guilty immediately that they won't, or that they won't change their plea if a not guilty one, later....
3. People questioning if they will get bail, it is unlikely. First, the crown needs to be able to show the judge that there is reasonable public risk if they are released. This shouldn't be an issue, including evidence of flight risk [as in, they fled Sarnia to London] . Once the crown demonstrates their burden of proof, the defense has to show the accuseds have sufficient surety, and won't be a public danger or flight risk. Previous criminal records can be admitted at this point by the crown. This includes a YOA record in which there was violence or various other circumstances. A surety in this case would include significant cash deposits, (perhaps collateral) and a 24/7 surety ie babysitter that the court trusts to make sure the person obeys the bail release rules. The babysitter must pledge collateral and or cash of their own and have no criminal record. The public interest always outweighs, so I doubt that either will be released.
4. At the superior court level, expect that there will meetings, pre-trial conferences, disclosure meetings and resolution meetings as well as setting the bail hearing, the preliminary inquiry if there is one, and eventually the trial. There are a number of other motions which will occur such as change of venue, whether to try the accuseds together or separately, and I'm certain a number of evidentiary motions.
Hope this helps answer some questions, all of which are IMHO and I hope, respectfully explained
