Markham Robbery Lawyer: Robbery Charges (s. 343) Defence

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Robbery is one word that covers a shove at a mall exit and a firearm in a bank. The Criminal Code treats every version the same way at the charging stage: an indictable offence with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. And in York Region, every version ends up at the same address, the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St. W. If you or someone you love is facing a robbery charge in Markham, the decisions made in the first few weeks shape everything that follows. Kazandji Law defends these cases from our Thornhill office, minutes up Yonge Street from Markham.

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

Three Markham robbery patterns, one Newmarket courtroom

Robbery files out of Markham tend to arrive in one of three shapes. There is the theft that turned physical at a store exit or on the street. There is the planned commercial or bank robbery, the kind that draws a specialized York Regional Police unit and weeks of quiet investigation before any arrest. And there is the home invasion allegation, the version courts treat most severely. Each pattern produces its own kind of evidence and its own defence problems, and this page walks through all three.

What they share is the destination. Markham has no criminal courthouse. Every robbery charge laid in the city, whatever its shape, runs through the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St. W.: bail, case management, any preliminary inquiry, and trial, whether in the Ontario Court of Justice or before a Superior Court jury in the same building. That is genuinely different from Toronto, where the same case would move between a dedicated bail centre and two other courthouses. One address simplifies the logistics. It does not simplify the law.

Pattern one: the store exit shove that becomes a life-maximum charge

Start with the most common pattern, because it surprises people the most. Shoplifting is theft under s. 322 of the Criminal Code, punished under s. 334 as a hybrid offence: property worth $5,000 or under carries an indictable maximum of 2 years, over $5,000 it is 10. First-offence theft files are routinely resolved without a criminal record.

Now add one shove at the door. The moment violence, a threat of violence, or an assault attaches to a theft, s. 343 converts the file into robbery. Robbery is straight indictable. There is no summary route, and the maximum in every case is life imprisonment. The same $60 of merchandise, one panicked push past a loss prevention officer, and the legal category changes completely.

Section 343(c) reaches further than most people expect. Assaulting anyone with intent to steal is robbery even where nothing was taken at all. A struggle with a security guard in a parking lot can be charged as robbery with no completed theft anywhere in the file.

Markham's retail geography matters here. Large centres like CF Markville, Pacific Mall and First Markham Place run active security and heavy camera coverage, so these files usually arrive with video, radio logs and staff witness statements. First response comes from York Regional Police #5 District at 8700 McCowan Rd., with follow-up by the district's Criminal Investigations Bureau. The defence work starts with the footage: what it actually shows about contact, timing and intent often looks very different from the police synopsis. Where the violence element is absent or trivial, the realistic fight is over whether this is a theft case wearing the wrong label. Our Markham theft defence page covers the underlying property charge.

Pattern two: commercial and bank robbery, the Hold-Up Unit's lane

Planned robberies of businesses and banks are investigated differently. York Regional Police maintains a dedicated Hold-Up Unit, and two of its recent Markham files show how these prosecutions get built.

In the first, two suspects entered a commercial building near Warden Avenue and Masseyfield Gate on May 14, 2026, armed with firearms. Hold-Up Unit investigators charged one man a few weeks later with Robbery with a Firearm and Disguise with Intent, with a second suspect still outstanding. In the second, the unit announced charges against a suspect across four separate bank robbery investigations, including an attempted bank robbery at Highway 7 and Birchmount Road in Markham on March 9, 2026.

Two things follow from files like these. First, by the time anyone is arrested, police often hold weeks of accumulated evidence: surveillance video from multiple sources, records tying phones and vehicles to locations, sometimes forensic results. Second, the case still has to survive courtroom scrutiny on identification. Disguise allegations cut both ways. A masked robber on video is harder to identify, which is why continuity of the footage, the fairness of any photo lineup, and the inferences police draw from clothing, build or gait become the real battleground. Defence counsel who press for full disclosure early can test every link in that chain before trial positions harden.

Street robberies, swarmings and carjackings in Markham are investigated by YRP officers as well, and whatever unit holds the file, the charge and the evidence problems are the same.

Pattern three: the home invasion allegation

Ask anyone who works in criminal courts which robbery files draw the longest sentences, and the answer is home invasions. Here is the part most people get wrong: home invasion is not a separate Criminal Code offence. The charge is still robbery under s. 343, often alongside break and enter counts.

In practice these files combine everything the system treats as serious: an occupied home, terrified occupants, often weapons, often multiple accused. Sentencing exposure sits at the top of the range and bail is fought hardest. The recurring defence issues are identity (masked intruders and cross-contaminated descriptions), the role each participant actually played, and the reliability of eyewitness accounts given under extreme fear. If the allegation involves a weapon, our Markham armed robbery page covers that side in more depth.

The four ways the Criminal Code says robbery can be committed

Section 343 sets out four routes to a robbery conviction. The Crown needs only one.

Provision	What it covers	What to notice
s. 343(a)	Stealing while using violence or threats of violence against a person or property, to extort the property or to prevent or overcome resistance	Threats alone are enough, and threats against property count
s. 343(b)	Stealing from a person with personal violence at the time of the theft, immediately before or immediately after	The timing window extends beyond the moment of taking
s. 343(c)	Assaulting any person with intent to steal	No completed theft is required
s. 343(d)	Stealing while armed with an offensive weapon or an imitation of one	A replica or imitation weapon expressly qualifies

Because being armed is just one mode of committing the offence, 'armed robbery' is not a separate charge in Canada. There is one robbery offence; weapon and firearm allegations change the sentencing route under s. 344 and the bail position, not the name on the information. And under (d), the fact a weapon was fake is no answer. A replica pistol satisfies the section.

The flip side is that each mode carries its own elements, and every element is a place the Crown's case can fail: the connection between the violence and the taking under (a) and (b), the intent to steal under (c), what counts as being armed under (d). Robbery trials are won inside those details far more often than people expect.

What robbery carries now: the penalty map after Bill C-5

Parliament rewrote the robbery punishment provision in 2022, and much of what is still published online about robbery minimums is now wrong. Here is the current law under s. 344.

Scenario	Mandatory minimum	Maximum
A restricted or prohibited firearm is used, or any firearm is used and the robbery is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal organization (s. 344(1)(a))	5 years first offence, 7 years second or subsequent	Life imprisonment
Every other robbery, including with a non-restricted firearm, a knife, an imitation weapon, or no weapon at all (s. 344(1)(b))	None	Life imprisonment

Can the surviving minimums be attacked under the Charter? At the Supreme Court level that door is closed. In R. v. Hilbach, 2023 SCC 3, the Court held the s. 344(1)(a)(i) minimum and the former 4-year minimum constitutional; neither amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The companion case, R. v. Hills, 2023 SCC 2, struck down a different firearm minimum, the one for discharging a firearm at a place under s. 244.2(3)(b), and restated the s. 12 framework. It did not touch robbery.

So the honest sentencing summary is this. Most robberies carry no minimum and a life maximum, which leaves the outcome to the facts: the degree of violence, planning, the weapon, injuries, the record, and statutory aggravators like s. 348.1. Where the file crosses into s. 344(1)(a) territory, the floor is 5 years and the fight shifts to whether the firearm allegation itself can be proven or excluded.

Bail in York Region: one courthouse, and when the onus flips

Robbery is not on the s. 469 list, so bail is decided by the Ontario Court of Justice. In York Region that means the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St. W., the OCJ courthouse serving the region. The OCJ runs weekend and statutory holiday bail courts, and under the current OCJ bail practice direction, sureties can attend by audio or video and contested hearings often proceed virtually.

The more important question is who must prove what. In the ordinary case the Crown has to show cause why detention is justified. Section 515(6) reverses that onus in situations that appear constantly in robbery files:

• the robbery is alleged to have been committed with a firearm (s. 515(6)(a)(vii));
• the alleged offence was committed while already on release for another indictable charge (s. 515(6)(a)(i));
• the robbery is alleged to be connected to a criminal organization (s. 515(6)(a)(ii));
• the offence involved a firearm or other weapon while under a weapons prohibition order (s. 515(6)(a)(viii));
• there is a conviction within the previous five years for another violent offence involving a weapon, where both offences carry 10-year-plus maximums (s. 515(6)(b.2)).

Reverse onus means detention becomes the default unless the defence shows cause. Winning these hearings takes preparation, not improvisation: a confirmed residence, a supervision plan, work or school records, and sureties who understand the role. A surety supervises, pledges an amount the court sets (an actual deposit is required only in some cases), and risks that money at a forfeiture hearing if conditions are breached. Charging a fee to act as a surety is illegal. We prepare release plans and sureties before anyone testifies, because a failed first attempt makes everything after it harder. There is a full walkthrough on our Markham bail lawyer page.

From a Markham arrest to a verdict, all at one address

Here is the usual route of a Markham robbery file from start to finish.

Arrest and processing. Most Markham robbery arrests are processed through #5 District at 8700 McCowan Rd. You will be invited to give a statement. Don't, not before speaking to a lawyer. Robbery cases are built on video, forensic and identification evidence, and an early statement almost always helps only the prosecution. You have the right to counsel before any interview; use it.

Bail. Usually within a day or so, at the Newmarket OCJ, in person or by video, as described above. If detention is ordered, a bail review goes to the Superior Court, which sits in the same building and schedules bail reviews there.

Case management and disclosure. Routine Newmarket criminal appearances run through virtual case-management courts, so counsel can often appear without you taking a day off work in Markham. This stretch of the case is about disclosure: the footage from every source, officer notes, the identification procedures, forensic results, and pressing the Crown for what is missing. Crown pre-trials and judicial pre-trials narrow the issues.

Election. Robbery is indictable, so the defence chooses the forum: trial in the OCJ, or trial in the Superior Court by judge alone or judge and jury. Because robbery carries a life maximum, above the 14-year threshold in s. 535, you can also request a preliminary inquiry before any committal to the SCJ. In York Region the election changes the courtroom and the judge, not the building. The Superior Court sits at 50 Eagle St. W. too.

Trial and timing. R. v. Jordan sets presumptive ceilings of 18 months for an OCJ trial and 30 months for a Superior Court trial, measured from charge and net of defence delay. Video-heavy robbery files with late disclosure can press hard against those ceilings, and delay beyond them is presumptively unreasonable.

Language and logistics. Newmarket serves one of the most diverse regions in Canada, and court interpreters are arranged through the courthouse for accused persons and witnesses who need them; tell your lawyer early so the request is on the record. French language services are available in the criminal courts as well. And because so much of the routine calendar now runs by video, a Markham resident can get through months of appearances without ever driving up Highway 404, provided counsel keeps the file moving on paper in the background.

What a robbery conviction costs beyond the sentence

Three consequences follow a robbery conviction that people rarely price in at the start.

Weapons. Section 109 makes a weapons prohibition mandatory on conviction for an indictable offence in which violence was used, threatened or attempted and which is punishable by 10 years or more. Robbery qualifies. The order runs at least 10 years for non-restricted firearms, for life for prohibited or restricted items, and for life across the board on any subsequent offence.

Immigration. Robbery is punishable by up to life imprisonment, which brings a conviction within the definition of serious criminality in s. 36(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. For permanent residents and foreign nationals the consequences can include inadmissibility and removal, and the time to deal with that risk is before any resolution, not after. Get combined criminal and immigration advice early.

The record. There is no summary version of robbery, so a conviction is an indictable conviction for an offence of violence, visible on record checks for employment, volunteering and travel. Where the evidence honestly supports it, resolving a robbery count to theft or assault instead changes that story completely. That is one reason the charge-label fights described above matter so much.

Where robbery cases are actually won

Every robbery prosecution must prove a specific person, a taking or attempted taking, and a specific violence element, all beyond a reasonable doubt. The defences track those pressure points.

Identity. Camera-heavy files look strong until the footage is reviewed frame by frame. Masks, hoods, low light and compression leave gaps, and those gaps get filled by eyewitness identifications with well-documented frailties. How a photo lineup was assembled and administered, and what a witness said before seeing it, are often the whole case.

The nexus. Under s. 343(a) and (b), the violence must connect to the stealing: to extort it, to overcome resistance, or at or immediately around the taking. A theft followed by a separate confrontation minutes later may be theft plus assault, two hybrid charges with real resolution room, rather than a single straight-indictable life-maximum offence. The difference is enormous.

Intent under s. 343(c). An assault with intent to steal requires proof of that intent. A confrontation police assumed was about property may have been about something else entirely.

The theft element. Theft requires acting fraudulently and without colour of right. A genuine, even mistaken, claim of entitlement to the property attacks the foundation of the charge.

The Charter. Identification procedures, statements taken before proper access to counsel, searches of phones and vehicles, and delay all generate litigation under ss. 8, 9, 10(b) and 11(b) that can exclude evidence or stop the prosecution.

Where an element is genuinely weak, that weakness also drives resolution: robbery counts reduced to theft or assault, or firearm allegations withdrawn, which removes minimums and reverse-onus consequences. No lawyer can promise an outcome. What counsel controls is whether every one of these doors actually gets opened, and our recent results show how often one of them does.

Why Markham clients call Kazandji Law

Robbery defence rewards seniority. These files combine violence allegations, firearms law, identification evidence and bail strategy, and they are won by counsel who have run them before. Fadi Matthew Kazandji leads every file personally.

Our Thornhill office at 7191 Yonge St., Suite 310 is our closest to Markham and serves clients across York Region; Newmarket appearances are routine for us. We also meet clients at our Toronto head office at 180 John St., Unit 320, and at our North York and Oakville offices. Consultations are free and confidential, and the phone is answered around the clock, because robbery arrests don't happen during business hours. Start with our Markham criminal defence hub to see everything we defend, including related charges like arson and uttering threats.

The first 72 hours: what to do, and what not to do

Most of the damage in robbery files happens early, and most of it is avoidable. If you or a family member has just been arrested in Markham, this is the short version of the advice we give at 2 a.m.

Say nothing about the allegation. Not to police, not to cellmates, not on the recorded phone lines from the holding cells. You must identify yourself; you do not have to explain anything. Ask to speak to a lawyer and keep asking until it happens.

Do not touch the evidence. Deleting messages, discarding clothing or asking a friend to move property creates new charges and turns neutral facts into guilty-looking ones. Preservation cuts both ways; receipts, transit records and phone location data have ended prosecutions.

Stay away from the complainant and witnesses. Any contact, direct or through friends, will be read as interference and will poison the bail position. If there are people who saw what actually happened, give their names to your lawyer and let counsel do the interviewing.

Families: start assembling the release plan now. Bail moves fast in York Region, sometimes the same day. Potential sureties should gather proof of savings or home equity, a letter confirming employment, and a realistic supervision plan covering where the person will live and who will be home. Bring identification. Under the current OCJ bail practice direction sureties can often attend by video, which matters when the hearing is called with an hour's notice.

Write everything down. Times, places, names, what officers said, what was seized. Memory decays fastest in the first week, and small details about how an identification or a search happened often become the heart of the defence.

When the accused is a teenager: youth robbery files in York Region

A meaningful share of Markham robbery arrests involve young people, often group incidents at malls, plazas or transit stops where one person's push or grabbed phone pulls everyone present into a robbery investigation. Parents are usually blindsided by how serious the charge sounds.

Accused aged 12 to 17 are prosecuted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, not the adult system. Youth matters in York Region run through the youth court at the same Newmarket courthouse, but the framework is different: it is built on the principle of diminished moral blameworthiness, with distinct youth sentences and strict publication protections that keep a young person's identity out of the public record. Because robbery is an offence of violence, the YCJA's presumption of out-of-court measures for minor first offences cannot be assumed here; these files need actual defence work on the elements, the identification evidence and the role the young person genuinely played in a group incident.

Two practical points for parents. First, the same right to counsel applies, and a young person should not be interviewed without advice; statements taken from youths face extra admissibility requirements, which is a real area of litigation. Second, an adult-court strategy pasted onto a youth file wastes the protections the YCJA actually offers. Our Markham youth criminal defence page explains the youth process end to end.

Markham robbery charges: questions we hear every week

This page is general legal information for people facing robbery charges in Markham and York Region, current to July 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Statutes and court practices change. For advice on your case, call Kazandji Law at 647-588-3234.