“Urgent - Illegal Stop & Arrest On Private Property”

Not sure what else we can tell you. The reason the officer arrested you seems to be for a violation under s. 12 (1) HTA - which he is lawfully entitled to do as per s 217 of the HTA .

The HTA states an offence under 12 (1) HTA can happen anywhere.

I don't think anyone particularly enjoys being arrested and there's no where it says the cop has to be nice or pleasent about it. Also if the officer wanted to wait 12 hours surveilling your car before he conducted his stop he could if he had the time. I'm sure it will all be explained to you in your reply from OIPRD if receive one .

It's not the case of the century and r vs. Tresham isn't going to help this is pretty cut and dry from what you've told us.

R v Tresham is an 18 year old case which resulted in amendments to the HTA. I'd suggest you have a look at R. v Hajivasilis which is more current and relevant. In Hajivasilis, the Court of Appeal clarified that certain sections of the HTA can apply to private property.

Maybe I'm mistaken but it seems to me there is more to this story than we are being told.

Consider that the OP owns two cars and for each car there is a valid (in terms of expiry date) sticker on each licence plate. The only thing wrong is that the very tiny, hard to read unless one gets up close and personal with the licence plate, numbers on the stickers have been accidentally switched between the cars.

Based on listening to police radio transmissions when a car licence plate is being run I only ever hear that the sticker is valid or not valid. I've never heard any discussion of the series of numbers on the sticker. Further more when I have been pulled over by police and handed them my ownership with the a sticker on the back of it I have never ever had an officer compare the number on the ownsership sticker with the number on the licence plate sticker.

Given that when the officer in question ran the licence plate of the OP it seems more than likely that the query would have returned that the sticker is valid.

So what would have caused the officer in this case to further investigate the numbers on a seemingly valid sticker? Is it normal police procedure to verify these numbers or is it likely that there was something the OP did/said that would warrant a further and a very much in-depth investigation?

Stanton wrote:R v Tresham is an 18 year old case which resulted in amendments to the HTA. I'd suggest you have a look at R. v Hajivasilis which is more current and relevant. In Hajivasilis, the Court of Appeal clarified that certain sections of the HTA can apply to private property.

I'm not happy to read that, but I really appreciate it. These laws are incredibly confusing! Moving violations aren't applicable on private property, but stuff like this is? You can drive on private property without a licence or insurance, but you can't do so with the wrong sticker on your car? I thought I was protected on private property, and was doing my utmost to avoid breaking any laws once I determined something was wrong. I have an appointment with a paralegal on Friday, and will file my disclosure request after speaking with them to be sure I'm going about this the right way.

Markus wrote:So what would have caused the officer in this case to further investigate the numbers on a seemingly valid sticker? Is it normal police procedure to verify these numbers or is it likely that there was something the OP did/said that would warrant a further and a very much in-depth investigation?

I'd love to know that as well. I suspect this is all automated, and my plate would have come up as having an expired sticker on the car (I own two similar cars I haven't been able to drive this year due to personal reasons). There were three officers sitting in a parking lot on a break (official or otherwise), and the car in question is a mint condition 1990's BMW M3 that the officer complimented me on several times despite his otherwise very hostile tone. I parked the car right near them, too, not even thinking I'd broken any laws, so it wouldn't exactly have been a stretch for one of them to run my plates while they were parked there for over an hour talking.

After he 'stopped' me he took over a half hour apparently just to determine that he could not in fact seize my plate as it was legally attached to the car and the car was insured. You'd think he would realize that might indicate I'm not attempting to cheat the system, especially given that I was able to correct this that same afternoon, but I never got the chance to talk to him beforehand.

I can't believe the laws in this province actually permit someone to be arrested for making an easily correctible mistake even if the car in question is parked in their driveway! How could that possibly make sense? I had no way of knowing I had the wrong sticker on the car from looking at it, either, as I didn't handle the renewal or the sticker application and I have two similar cars. I did know I had no front plate mounted on the car (as there is no place for one), and I thought that was what he was concerned with. I typically place the plate prominently on my windshield, but had forgotten it at home as was intending to retrieve it.

Amazing what we put up with in this province. When I did a bumper swap in my garage on one of my cars years ago it apparently would have been an offense to remove the rear plate had I done the work in my driveway instead of my garage.

Sh0ckw4v3 wrote:

Markus wrote:So what would have caused the officer in this case to further investigate the numbers on a seemingly valid sticker? Is it normal police procedure to verify these numbers or is it likely that there was something the OP did/said that would warrant a further and a very much in-depth investigation?

I'd love to know that as well. I suspect this is all automated, and my plate would have come up as having an expired sticker on the car (I own two similar cars I haven't been able to drive this year due to personal reasons).

Ah! It seems I might have misunderstood. I assumed you had a valid sticker on both plates. Are you now saying that that not only was the wrong sticker on the licence plate but that the wrong sticker had also expired? Or that the sticker originally intended for the plate on the car in the parking lot had in fact expired but he sticker on the plate was valid (by date)?

Markus wrote:Ah! It seems I might have misunderstood. I assumed you had a valid sticker on both plates. Are you now saying that that not only was the wrong sticker on the licence plate but that the wrong sticker had also expired? Or that the sticker originally intended for the plate on the car in the parking lot had in fact expired but he sticker on the plate was valid (by date)?

The latter. Both of the cars in question were parked last November (anyone dealing with a rusty Ontario project car would understand that completely), and this was the first time I'd driven the car. I had to replace the valid sticker for the second car. Both cars were and are properly plated and insured (and stickered now as well).

Sh0ckw4v3 wrote:

Markus wrote:Ah! It seems I might have misunderstood. I assumed you had a valid sticker on both plates. Are you now saying that that not only was the wrong sticker on the licence plate but that the wrong sticker had also expired? Or that the sticker originally intended for the plate on the car in the parking lot had in fact expired but he sticker on the plate was valid (by date)?

The latter. Both of the cars in question were parked last November (anyone dealing with a rusty Ontario project car would understand that completely), and this was the first time I'd driven the car. I had to replace the valid sticker for the second car. Both cars were and are properly plated and insured (and stickered now as well).

Now I understand. It seems that the officer ran your plate and was notified that the sticker had expired. He also noticed that there was a "valid" sticker on the plate and this would naturally have raised his suspicions and he would want to know the origin of the "valid" sticker. This is why he checked the numbers on the sticker.

As to why he felt the need to arrest you - I cannot say because I wasn't there to hear what was said and what was done by you and by the officer. As to the officer waiting around for a few hours - who knows why he did so and I can't see why this would help in your defence. It seems from the information in the latter posts of this thread that you may be out of luck in terms of the private property issue.

Fact is you made a mistake (and I'm assuming it was an honest mistake) and you got caught. It's unfortunate. Good luck with your defence.

Without pointing fingers or accusing you of anything nefarious, I too have a car (an old Jaguar that I last licensed 2 years ago) and I simply know that I haven't bought a sticker for it. Whether or not I had inadvertently put a sticker on the Jag's plate I would have known that I didn't pay for the sticker and therefore I would never have driven it.

In your original post you say you had no intention of leaving the private property with the wrongly licensed car. If you didn't know it was wrongly licensed, as you claim not to, why would you have no intention of leaving the private property while the police were there?

Markus, I agree...if an officer saw only one plate on the car, and noticed it was an Ontario plated car, which needs 2 plates, and the plate was run and came back as expired val tag but noticed a valid val tag on it, that needs to be investigated...perhaps it was an A.L.P.R. (Automatic Licence Plate Reader) cruiser which runs plates automatically and the cop got a hit as it passed the OP's vehicle. As for waiting around for the 2 hours, the cop was hoping you would have left the private lot so he could stop you on the highway where the possibility of more charges (such as no insurance) may have been possible...

Don't throw good money after bad. A good paralegal, unless there is something we're not being told here, will have a nigh on impossible time beating this.

This is an interesting case. There must be previous case law more relevant to R. v Hajivasilis as this case deals with a Crown obtaining an appeal for leaving the scene of an accident.

However infractions for stickers on private property. Tim Hortons is a rather bad example. If it was written:

Someone was driving in their yard of 10 acres from one side to another and got stopped for having no sticker. Do the same rules apply in this scenario?

Or if someone was driving on another persons property of 10 acres and got stopped for having no sticker. Do the same rules apply in this scenario?

Or does permission to access the property come into play?

I highly doubt it.

Some thought to the poster: If the officer simply states he seen you travel on a highway prior to the pit stop... you're most likely going to lose. I'm interested to see if the disclosure would include any GPS data (they will most likely state they do not track this). I didn't even know this could be requested.

This case opens eyes to events that take place on private roads. It appears the HTA is geared more towards accidents than stickers.

Keep us posted when you Google the question it states that for the Province of Ontario HTA isn't applicable only for accidents over $1000.

Interesting case. I believe they can arrest or charge you anywhere if they really sure about it, for example if the Robber ran into that house, they don't need warrant to enter that house to catch that Robber, they will break in ! Cops sometimes happy sometimes miserable,

usually they won't act tough if you don't act weird they won't use force if you don't resist, living 25+ years in Toronto Canada i never had problems with Cops or hate any of them. i forgot to renew sticker, i got ticket by A Bicycle Cop, ok np thats alright i did not hate that cop, i went to Court explained to the Judge and they forgave me.

You should not act to him like that 1st, he was watching you because you were acting weird, he ticket you because the way you act and walk, if he watch you that means you have something that he can charge, whenever Cops wants to look at me, i always PULL OWN ALL MY WINDOW so they can see me clearly, when they asks me for an ID i just show it to them, an innocent person have nothing to hide or to scare right ?