Aggravated Assault Lawyers in Ontario (s. 268)

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Aggravated assault is defined by s. 268 of the Criminal Code as an assault that wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the complainant. It is the most serious non-sexual assault charge in Canadian law: straight indictable, with a maximum sentence of 14 years. Unlike lesser assault charges there is no summary route, no discharge and no diversion, which is why these files are so often fought over whether the injuries truly meet the s. 268 threshold.

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

Those four statutory words carry more consequence than most people charged under them realize. The moment a Crown screens an assault file as aggravated, a set of exits that stay open on every other rung of the assault ladder quietly close. Kazandji Law defends s. 268 charges across Ontario, and a large part of that work is testing whether the injury evidence actually belongs at the top of the ladder, because one rung down, under the assault offence framework, the whole procedural picture changes.

The Four Words in Section 268

Section 268 is startlingly short. Everyone commits an aggravated assault who wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the complainant. There is no list of weapons, no requirement of planning, no minimum number of blows. The Crown picks one or more of the four branches, and the defence tests whether the evidence actually reaches it.

Wounds. A wound is a breaking of the skin or tissue, injury beyond the superficial. It does not require permanence. A cut that heals cleanly can still be a wound in law, which surprises many clients.

Maims. Maiming speaks to injury that deprives a person of the use of some part of their body, the kind of harm that affects function rather than appearance.

Disfigures. Disfigurement is about lasting change to appearance, scarring being the classic example. Whether a mark truly amounts to disfigurement, rather than a healed injury, is a live issue in many trials.

Endangers the life. This is the reach branch, and it needs no permanent injury at all. Conduct that put the complainant's life at risk can complete the section even where the person recovered fully. Choking allegations, blows to the head and injuries near vital structures often arrive under this branch, and the medical evidence about how close things actually came is where the case is decided.

We stay with the statutory language on purpose. These four words are the entire definition, they are what the judge will apply, and every one of them can be tested against the medical file.

The Assault Ladder: s. 265 to s. 268

Every assault charge in Canada starts from the same definition. Section 265 makes it an assault to intentionally apply force to another person without consent, to attempt or threaten it with present ability, or to accost someone while openly carrying a weapon. What changes up the ladder is consequence, and the jump to s. 268 is the one that changes everything.

Charge	Threshold	Maximum	Crown election
Assault (s. 266)	Any non-consensual application of force; no injury needed	5 years on indictment; summarily, a fine up to 5,000 dollars and/or up to two years less a day (s. 787)	Hybrid
Assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm, incl. choking (s. 267)	A weapon carried, used or threatened; or bodily harm that is more than transient or trifling; or choking, suffocating or strangling	10 years on indictment; summary route available	Hybrid
Aggravated assault (s. 268)	Wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers life	14 years	Indictable only

Two things to take from the table. First, the thresholds are about the character of the harm, not the drama of the allegation. Second, s. 268 is the only rung with no summary route, and that single feature drives the closed exits below. Where the injuries sit near a threshold, whether a file is charged as simple assault, as assault with a weapon or bodily harm, or as aggravated assault is exactly what competent defence work challenges.

What Makes an Assault Aggravated, and What Does Not

Not every serious-sounding allegation meets the s. 268 standard. Police lay charges early, on incomplete pictures, and the aggravated label sometimes reflects the fear of the night rather than the injuries in the chart. Facts that commonly get charged as aggravated assault but better fit a lesser rung include bruising and swelling that resolve, cuts treated with a bandage rather than sutures, brief loss of consciousness with a clean CT scan, and fractures whose functional impact is short-lived. Those can absolutely support s. 267 bodily harm. Whether they support wounding, maiming, disfigurement or endangerment of life is a different question.

Why the classification fight matters so much: the available resolutions change, the sentencing exposure changes, and the procedural rights change. A downgrade from s. 268 to s. 267 or s. 266 does not just reduce a number, it reopens the summary route, discharges and diversion, all of which are closed at the top of the ladder. It can be the difference between a criminal record for life and a file that ends without one.

The reverse is also worth naming honestly: an assault nobody intended to be serious can still be aggravated in law. A single punch that fractures a skull, one push near a staircase, one squeeze of a throat held too long. Intent to cause the specific injury is not what the section asks. If a death results, the file leaves the assault ladder entirely and becomes a manslaughter case.

One practical reassurance: the police classification is a screening position, and a screening position is a starting point, not a verdict. Crown counsel reassess charges when disclosure lands and defence material arrives, and assault-ladder charges move between rungs in both directions throughout a prosecution. The earlier the medical picture is completed, the earlier that reassessment can be pushed, and the more of the closed exits described below can be reopened by getting the charge right.

Aggravated Sexual Assault Is a Different Charge

People sometimes land on this page facing s. 273, aggravated sexual assault. It borrows the same four words, wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers life, but attaches them to a sexual assault, and it is a different offence with a harsher scheme, carrying liability up to imprisonment for life and prosecuted within the sexual offence framework, with its own evidence rules and collateral orders. If that is your charge, start with our Ontario sexual offence lawyers page, then call us.

What the Crown Must Prove

Stay at the level of the statute and the burden is easy to state, hard to meet. To convict under s. 268 the Crown must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, each of the following.

• An assault. The foundation is s. 265: an intentional application of force without consent, or a threat of it with present ability. If the underlying assault fails, everything above it fails. Accident, reflex and lawful defensive force all attack this element.
• Identity. That you were the person who applied the force. In group and nightclub cases this is often the strongest defence on the file.
• Causation of the injury. The wound, maiming, disfigurement or endangerment must result from the assault alleged, not from a fall, an intervening event, a pre-existing condition or someone else entirely.
• The s. 268 outcome itself. Injuries proven on medical evidence that actually reach one of the four branches. Loose language in a synopsis is not proof; hospital records are.

Notice what is not on the list: an intention to cause the catastrophic injury. That is precisely why the classification and causation fights carry the weight in these trials, and why the defence file is built around medicine as much as memory.

The Closed Exits: What a s. 268 Charge Switches Off

On the lower rungs of the assault ladder, an experienced defence lawyer works a series of exits: summary election, diversion, discharges, quiet resolutions. Aggravated assault closes them, one by one, and knowing which doors are shut tells you where the real fight is.

Exit one, closed: the summary route

Sections 266 and 267 are hybrid offences, so the Crown can proceed summarily, with lower ceilings and a lighter procedural footprint. Section 268 is straight indictable. There is no summary election, ever, and the lower summary maximums never apply to it.

Exit two, closed: discharges

Absolute and conditional discharges under s. 730 let some first offenders avoid a conviction record. They are statutorily unavailable for offences punishable by 14 years or more. A finding of guilt on aggravated assault therefore always produces a conviction, which raises the stakes of any guilty plea enormously.

Exit three, closed: diversion

Ontario's Crown Prosecution Manual directive on community justice programs lists aggravated assault as ineligible for referral regardless of the circumstances. That is Crown policy rather than statute, but it is applied province-wide. No program completion, charity donation or counselling letter converts a s. 268 file into a diversion file.

Exit four, mostly closed: a clean aftermath

A s. 268 conviction carries a mandatory weapons prohibition under s. 109 for an indictable offence of violence punishable by ten years or more: at least ten years for non-restricted firearms and life for restricted or prohibited items. The Crown also routinely seeks ancillary orders in serious violence files. And for non-citizens the 14 year maximum has immigration consequences all by itself, covered below.

The One Door That Opens: the Preliminary Inquiry

There is one procedural right the 14 year maximum buys. Preliminary inquiries survive only for offences punishable by 14 years or more (s. 535), and aggravated assault is the one rung of the assault ladder that qualifies. On request, the defence gets a hearing before trial at which the Crown's committal case is tested under oath.

Used well, a prelim in a s. 268 case is where the injury evidence meets cross-examination for the first time: the treating physician on what the records actually document, the complainant on mechanism and sequence, the officers on scene observations. The transcript disciplines the trial that follows, and more than a few aggravated files come back from a prelim looking like s. 267 files. In Toronto the inquiry runs at the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury St; in York Region, at the Newmarket courthouse before any committal upstairs to the Superior Court.

The Real Battleground: s. 268 or s. 267

Most aggravated assault prosecutions in Ontario are not fought over whether an assault happened. They are fought over which rung it belongs on. Section 267(b) requires bodily harm, hurt or injury that is more than merely transient or trifling, and it carries ten years as a hybrid offence. Section 268 requires more: a wound, a maiming, disfigurement, or endangerment of life. The space between those two thresholds is where the case lives.

The dividing proof is almost always medical. Hospital records, imaging, photographs taken on the night against photographs taken at trial, and the honest opinion of treating professionals about function, scarring and risk. We obtain the complete records early, retain independent medical opinion where the Crown's theory overreaches, and put the downgrade position to the Crown at the judicial pre-trial with the evidence attached, not as a favour to ask but as a proof problem they have to solve. Where a weapon allegation travels with the injury, the s. 267(a) analysis runs alongside, and our assault with a weapon page covers that terrain.

At trial, the lesser rungs remain available as included offences. A jury that is not satisfied life was endangered can still convict on bodily harm, which cuts both ways: it is the safety net the Crown relies on, and the landing zone the defence prepares.

When One Punch Becomes s. 268, and When It Becomes Something Worse

A hard truth about the endangers-life branch: nobody has to intend a catastrophe for one to be charged. A single blow that fractures a skull can complete the section. One push near a staircase, one chokehold held seconds too long, one bottle swung in a crowd. The section asks what the assault did, not what the person meant to do, and Ontario courtrooms see genuinely ordinary people facing s. 268 counts over incidents that lasted under five seconds.

That cuts in two directions, and both belong in an honest consultation. In one direction, brief and unintended does not mean minor in law, so treating a five-second incident casually is a mistake. In the other, the shortness and chaos of these events is often where the defence lives: self-defence assessed in real time rather than hindsight, causation questions about the fall rather than the blow, and medical evidence about whether life was actually endangered or the emergency room was simply being careful.

And where a death results, the file leaves the assault ladder entirely. The same five seconds becomes a homicide investigation, and the charge becomes manslaughter, with its own framework and stakes. Our Ontario manslaughter lawyers page covers that territory, including how unlawful act manslaughter grows out of exactly these facts.

If your incident sits anywhere near this line, get advice before you speak to anyone. The difference between an assault file and a homicide file can be a pathology report you have not seen yet.

Sentencing When the Charge Sticks

Where a conviction does enter, the statutory frame is a 14 year maximum and no minimum, with the full range of custodial outcomes in between. We do not publish ranges or typical sentences on this page. Aggravated assault sentencing is driven by the facts a court finds: the gravity of the injuries, the role of weapons, provocation or self-defence context that fell short, the record, and rehabilitation evidence that actually holds up.

Two statutory notes matter in many files. Where the complainant is an intimate partner or family member, s. 718.2(a)(ii) makes the abuse an aggravating factor on sentence, and those files run inside the domestic prosecution stream from day one. And every s. 268 conviction brings the mandatory s. 109 weapons prohibition described above, an order that follows you long after any sentence ends.

The honest way to think about sentencing exposure is not a number pulled from a website. It is a range of realistic outcomes built from disclosure, medical evidence and the sentencing principles a particular set of facts engages. That assessment is part of every consultation we do on these files.

Defences That Actually Work

Aggravated assault trials are won in four places, and an honest defence assessment looks at all of them before promising anything.

Self-defence (s. 34). The most important defence in confrontation cases, and a complete one. If you reasonably believed force or the threat of force was being used against you or someone else, acted for a defensive purpose, and responded reasonably in the circumstances, there is no offence at all. In serious-injury files the fight is usually over proportionality, and s. 34 tells courts to weigh the whole picture: the imminence of the threat, the presence of weapons, size and capability differences, and the history between the parties. Serious injuries do not disqualify the defence; they sharpen the scrutiny.

Consent, within its limits. Genuine mutual fights happen. But the Supreme Court held in Jobidon that consent to a fist fight is vitiated where serious bodily harm is both intended and caused, so consent alone rarely finishes an aggravated file. Where it matters is at the margins: who escalated, what was agreed to, and whether the injury branch is truly made out once the mutual context is understood.

Identity and causation. Melee cases, bar cases and group confrontations regularly produce the wrong accused. And the injuries themselves have to be caused by the assault alleged: pre-existing conditions, intervening events and alternative mechanisms all belong to the defence file, through the same medical records the Crown relies on.

The Charter, and the burden. Statements taken in breach of the right to counsel, searches that overreached, disclosure that arrives late and incomplete: exclusion applications change trials. And where the accused testifies, the court must acquit not only if it believes them, but if their evidence leaves a reasonable doubt. Two-story trials are not credibility contests, and juries are instructed accordingly.

Bail and the Court Path Across Ontario

Aggravated assault is not a s. 469 offence, so bail is decided in the Ontario Court of Justice, ordinarily with the Crown bearing the onus. There is no automatic reverse onus just because the charge is s. 268; specific triggers on the facts, like offending while on release, can flip it. Expect strict conditions in serious-injury files, including no-contact and no-go terms, and expect the release plan to matter. Our Toronto bail lawyers page covers how we prepare one that holds.

Where things happen depends on your region. In Toronto, all adult bail runs through the Toronto Regional Bail Centre at 2201 Finch Ave W, case management and any preliminary inquiry at the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury St, and Superior Court trials at 361 University Ave. In York Region the entire path, bail through jury trial, runs inside the single Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St W. The rhythm differs, the law does not: election under s. 536, a preliminary inquiry on request, and the Jordan ceilings of 18 months for an OCJ trial and 30 months for a Superior Court trial, which in a slow injury case can become a remedy of their own.

For the city-level detail, see our Toronto assault offence lawyers page, which includes its own s. 268 section, and our Markham aggravated assault lawyer page for York Region files.

If You Are Not a Canadian Citizen

For immigration purposes, aggravated assault is serious criminality on its face. Section 36(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act captures any offence punishable by a maximum of ten years or more, and s. 268 carries fourteen. That means a conviction engages serious criminality no matter what sentence is imposed, a permanent resident can face loss of status and removal proceedings, and a foreign national faces inadmissibility on any conviction. If you hold anything less than citizenship, immigration advice belongs inside the defence strategy from day one, before any plea is even discussed. We coordinate the two so a criminal resolution does not quietly become an immigration disaster.

The First Days After an Aggravated Assault Charge

What you do in the first two weeks shapes the file more than anything that happens in month six. Four practical points, learned from a lot of these cases.

Stop talking about the incident. Not to police without advice, not to the complainant, not on social media, not in text threads with friends who were there. Messages get screenshotted and disclosed. The right to silence only protects what stays unsaid.

Obey the conditions to the letter. Release orders in injury files carry no-contact and no-go terms. A breach is a new charge, a bail review risk and a credibility wound at trial. If a condition is unworkable, we apply to vary it; we do not improvise around it.

Preserve your own evidence. Photographs of your injuries, the clothes you wore, names of witnesses, the messages that show how the night actually unfolded. Defence evidence is perishable, and week-one preservation is free.

Get counsel before your first substantive court date. Early positions harden. The sooner the medical records are requested and the downgrade analysis starts, the more room there is to move the file before the Crown's screening position sets.

Why Kazandji Law

A s. 268 file is a medical-evidence case wearing a violence label, and it needs counsel who treats it that way. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji built this firm around serious files: the ones where the exits are closed, the Crown is confident, and the difference between outcomes is made by preparation rather than talk.

On an aggravated assault retainer that means the complete hospital records, not the summary; independent medical opinion where the endangerment theory overreaches; a bail plan that survives contact with a busy courtroom; a preliminary inquiry used as a tool rather than a formality; and a downgrade position argued from evidence at the pre-trial. It also means straight answers about risk. If your case should resolve, we will tell you why, with the disclosure on the table. If it should be fought, we fight it properly. Our results show how that approach performs in serious violence files.

We act across Ontario from four offices: Toronto headquarters at 180 John St, Unit 320; Thornhill at 7191 Yonge St, Suite 310, serving Markham and all of York Region; North York; and Oakville. The first consultation is free, and it is with a lawyer.

This page is general legal information for Ontario, not legal advice about your situation. Every aggravated assault file turns on its own facts and medical evidence, and nothing here creates a lawyer and client relationship. Statute references are to the Criminal Code of Canada as amended to the date above; diversion eligibility reflects Ontario Crown policy as published. If you are charged or under investigation, speak with a lawyer before making decisions. Kazandji Law, 180 John St, Unit 320, Toronto. Free consultation: 647-588-3234.