Simple Assault Lawyers in Toronto (s. 266)

Home › Criminal Defence › Simple Assault Lawyers in Toronto

Simple assault, usually called common assault, is the s. 266 Criminal Code offence of intentionally applying force to another person without their consent, attempting or threatening to do so by an act or gesture, or accosting them while openly carrying a weapon (s. 265). It is a hybrid offence: up to 5 years in prison on indictment or, summarily, a fine of up to $5,000 and/or up to two years less a day. There is no minimum sentence, and first offence files in Toronto frequently resolve through diversion, peace bonds or discharges. None of that is automatic. That is exactly why the first weeks matter.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

What Simple Assault Means (No Injury Required)

Section 265(1) creates three ways an assault happens, and none of them requires an injury.

• Force. Intentionally applying force to another person, directly or indirectly, without their consent. The force can be slight: a shove, a grab, spitting, snatching something out of someone's hand in a way that contacts them.
• Attempt or threat by act. Attempting or threatening, by an act or a gesture, to apply force, where the other person reasonably believes you have the present ability to carry it out. A credibly raised fist can complete the offence with no contact at all.
• Accosting with a weapon. Accosting or impeding a person, or begging, while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation of one.

The charge is laid under s. 266 when none of the aggravating features applies: no weapon, no bodily harm, no choking. It is the base rung of the assault ladder covered by our Ontario assault offences page, and it is the charge that brings more first-timers into a criminal courtroom than any other.

What the Crown Must Prove

Every element is a live battleground. The Crown must prove the contact or threatening act happened as alleged, that it was intentional rather than accidental or incidental, that there was no consent, and that you were the person involved. Toronto is a crowded city; TTC platforms, bar lineups and busy sidewalks produce contact all day that is not criminal because it lacks intent.

Genuinely trifling contact matters too. Courts assess these allegations with common sense, and minimal, fleeting contact in an emotional moment is fertile ground for withdrawal, diversion or acquittal. Every case turns on its facts, but the distance between what was alleged at the scene and what the evidence actually supports is where many s. 266 files are won.

Penalties, Done Right

Simple assault is hybrid, which means the Crown elects how to prosecute, and the election sets your maximum exposure and much of the procedure.

Route	Maximum penalty	What it means in practice
Summary conviction	Fine up to $5,000 and/or up to two years less a day in jail	The usual route for first offences and minor allegations; lighter procedure, Ontario Court of Justice
Indictment	Up to 5 years in prison	Reserved for more serious files, related charges or significant records

Either way, you will be fingerprinted, and there is no mandatory minimum. That last point matters more than it sounds: because no minimum applies, every sentencing tool stays legally available, from an absolute discharge up. The realistic outcome depends on the facts, the injuries if any, your record and how early the defence went to work.

Will a First Offender Go to Jail for Simple Assault?

The honest answer, not the marketing answer: jail is legally available for any assault conviction, and nobody can promise you a number. But for a first, non-domestic simple assault with no significant injury, the real fight in Toronto is rarely about how long. It is about which exit the file takes: withdrawal, diversion, a peace bond, a discharge, or a trial that ends in acquittal.

What the Crown looks at when screening the file is concrete: the level of force and any injuries, the context (bar fight, roommate dispute, TTC altercation), whether a weapon or a vulnerable complainant was involved, your history, and the public interest in prosecuting. Two cautions belong here. First, earlier brushes with the system count even when they ended well; charges that were withdrawn or resolved by peace bond remain visible to Crown screening. Second, nothing about being a first offender is automatic. The off-ramps exist because counsel builds the case for them, files the right material and pushes at the right pre-trial.

The Five Off-Ramps: How a s. 266 File Actually Ends

Most Toronto simple assault files never see a trial. They end on one of five off-ramps, usually tried in this order.

1. Withdrawal

The Crown prosecutes only where there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and the public interest requires it. Early, organized defence contact, pointing at consent, triviality, self-defence or evidentiary holes, is aimed at convincing the Crown the file fails that screen. The best resolution is the one where the charge simply ends.

2. Diversion: the Direct Accountability Program

Ontario Crown policy makes non-domestic simple assault eligible for community justice programs, and the Direct Accountability Program operates in most jurisdictions across Ontario. The shape: you accept responsibility (not a guilty plea), complete meaningful amends such as programming, counselling or community service, and on completion the Crown withdraws or stays the charge. Referral is the prosecutor's discretion, never a right, which is why the request has to be made well and early.

3. The peace bond

A s. 810 recognizance: you promise the court to keep the peace on conditions for up to 12 months, there is no plea and no finding of guilt, and the charge is withdrawn in exchange. It is not a conviction, though it can appear on some police record checks while active. How the exchange works, and when to refuse it, is covered on our Ontario peace bond page and the Toronto peace bond page.

4. Discharges

Because s. 266 carries no minimum, discharges under s. 730 remain available after a finding of guilt: absolute, or conditional with probation. A discharge means you are deemed not to have been convicted, though the finding has its own record footprint and timelines. It is the fallback that keeps a conviction off the books when the evidence is against you but the equities are not.

5. Trial

When the allegation is false, inflated or legally defective, the file should be tried. The Crown must prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt, the W.(D.) framework governs word-against-word credibility contests, and self-defence under s. 34 puts the whole context in issue. Knowing which files to try is the judgment that separates counsel.

The Toronto Fact Patterns, and How Each One Tends to Resolve

Simple assault charges in this city come from a handful of recurring situations, and each has its own defence texture.

The bar or club incident

Crowded room, alcohol, a shove or a swing, sometimes a bouncer in the middle. Identification is often the weakest link: strangers identifying strangers in the dark, after drinks, in motion. Video helps whoever it helps, so we move fast to preserve it before systems overwrite.

The TTC or street altercation

Transit produces contact and conflict all day, and platform cameras usually saw it. These files often turn on who initiated, whether the contact was defensive, and whether it was intentional at all in a moving crowd. Self-defence under s. 34 does real work here.

The house party or gathering

Everyone knows everyone, versions multiply, and the person charged is often just the one still there when police arrived. Witness lists and message threads from that night usually decide these, which is why early preservation matters more than argument.

The neighbour or condo dispute

A driveway confrontation or hallway shoving match at the end of a long feud. Context is everything: a two-way history reframes a single contact, and these files are strong candidates for withdrawal, diversion or a peace bond that ends the war formally.

The workplace incident

A confrontation with a colleague or customer, sometimes with an HR process running beside the criminal one. What you say in the workplace investigation can migrate into the prosecution, so both need to be handled as one strategy.

Different starting points, same discipline: preserve the evidence, say nothing without advice, and put the file on the best off-ramp it can honestly support.

When It Is a Domestic File, Everything Changes Lanes

The same shove alleged by a stranger and by a spouse produces two very different prosecutions. In an intimate partner file, Ontario Crown policy takes withdrawal out of the complainant's hands entirely; the charge is the Crown's to run, and prosecutors are directed not to withdraw it just because the complainant asks. Community justice diversion becomes presumptively unavailable without senior Crown approval. Bail can arrive with a reverse onus if you have a prior intimate partner conviction. And sentencing law treats partner abuse as aggravating.

Domestic files also run through their own programming streams, and resolutions often involve counselling components on Crown consent. If your charge involves a partner or ex-partner, read our domestic assault page, then call. The strategy is genuinely different.

Defences That Work at This Rung

• Self-defence, s. 34. You may respond to force or threatened force with reasonable force to protect yourself or someone else. The court examines the whole picture: imminence, proportionality, other options, the history between the parties.
• Consent, with its limit. Consent is a genuine defence in fights, sports and horseplay. But the Supreme Court held in Jobidon that consent to a fist fight does not extend to serious bodily harm that was intended and caused. That limit rarely bites at the s. 266 level, which is precisely where consent arguments live: contact without serious injury.
• No intent. Accidental and incidental contact is not assault. Crowds, transit, sports and chaotic group scenes all generate innocent contact.
• Identity. Bar and street files often turn on unreliable identifications made in the dark, in motion, by strangers.
• Credibility, W.(D.). Where it is one account against another, you are acquitted if your version is believed, and acquitted even if it is not fully believed but still leaves a reasonable doubt.
• The Charter. Statements taken improperly and disclosure failures have consequences, up to exclusion of evidence.

The Toronto Process, Start to Finish

Many people charged with simple assault in Toronto are released by police with conditions rather than held. If you are held, adult bail runs through the Toronto Regional Bail Centre at 2201 Finch Ave W. From there the file proceeds at the consolidated criminal courthouse at 10 Armoury St: first appearance, disclosure, Crown pre-trial, then whichever off-ramp fits, or a trial date. Much of the routine scheduling now runs through virtual courtrooms, so counsel can often appear without you missing work. R. v. Jordan sets a presumptive 18 month ceiling for Ontario Court of Justice files; superior court elections at 361 University Ave are rare at this rung. York Region readers: your file runs through Newmarket instead, and our Markham simple assault page covers that courthouse in detail.

If You Were Held for Bail

Most simple assault arrests in Toronto end with police release on an undertaking, but some do not: domestic context, an alleged breach, or a record can put you into a bail hearing at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre, 2201 Finch Ave W. What decides those hearings is preparation, a workable address, a surety where needed, and proposed conditions the court can live with, assembled before the matter is called, not during it. Conditions deserve as much attention as release itself. No-contact and no-go terms in an assault file can lock you out of your own home or complicate shared children, and an alleged breach is a fresh charge that puts your release at risk even if the original allegation is weak. Conditions are changed through the court, not by side agreement, and a bad set of conditions accepted in a hurry can shadow the whole case. Our Toronto bail page covers hearings, sureties and variations in full.

What a Conviction Would Actually Cost

A conviction for even the lowest assault means a criminal record with real screening consequences for employment, volunteering and travel. A discretionary weapons prohibition is possible. And for non-citizens the stakes multiply: a sentence over six months makes a permanent resident inadmissible for serious criminality, and for foreign nationals even a summary conviction can create inadmissibility. None of this is meant to frighten; it is meant to explain why the off-ramps above are worth real effort, and why we treat record protection as the actual goal of a s. 266 defence.

One honesty note: even files that end well leave a paper trail. Fingerprints are taken on arrest, and withdrawn charges or peace bonds can show up on some police record checks. Part of finishing the job is dealing with that footprint once the case ends.

When Injuries Push the Charge Up the Ladder

Add bodily harm, a weapon or choking, and the charge becomes assault causing bodily harm or assault with a weapon under s. 267, hybrid with a 10 year indictable maximum. Add wounding, maiming, disfigurement or endangerment of life, and it becomes aggravated assault under s. 268, straight indictable, 14 years, with the summary route, discharges and diversion all gone. The dividing lines are fought over medical records and photographs, and pulling a charge back down the ladder is often the most valuable work on a violence file. For the full ladder in one place, see the Toronto assault offences page.

Your First 72 Hours After a Toronto Assault Charge

The first three days set the file's trajectory. Follow every release condition exactly, including no contact, and treat the conditions as absolute even if the other person reaches out to smooth things over. Do not give police a statement to explain your side; statements are evidence, and you have not seen the disclosure yet. Stay off social media about the incident entirely. Preserve what you have while it exists: your messages and theirs, photos of any injuries to you, receipts, transit records, and the names of everyone who was present. Ask nearby businesses or your building about camera footage quickly, because most systems overwrite within days or weeks. Write out a dated timeline of the evening while it is fresh. Then hand all of it to counsel and let the first appearance, disclosure requests and Crown contact run through one strategy instead of improvisation.

Why Kazandji Law

Simple assault defence is about exits and endings: knowing every off-ramp, qualifying you for the best one, and trying the case when that is the right call. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji defends assault files across the GTA from four offices: our Toronto headquarters at 180 John St, Unit 320; Thornhill at 7191 Yonge St, Suite 310, serving Markham and York Region; North York; and Oakville. Senior counsel, direct answers, free consultation. See our results and the full criminal defence practice.

This page is legal information for Ontario, current to July 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation, and assault cases turn on their facts. For advice you can act on, call 647-588-3234 for a free, confidential consultation. Kazandji Law, 180 John St, Unit 320, Toronto.