Markham Invitation to Sexual Touching Lawyer (Section 152)

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An invitation to sexual touching charge does not allege a touching. It alleges words: that a person, for a sexual purpose, invited, counselled or incited someone under 16 to touch. In York Region these prosecutions are assembled one layer at a time. A disclosure. A recorded interview. Seized messages. An arrest, often at a family home. A defence is built the same way, by testing every layer. Everyone charged under section 152 is presumed innocent, and this page explains how a Markham file is actually put together and where it gets challenged.

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

What a section 152 charge actually alleges

Section 152 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence, for a sexual purpose, to invite, counsel or incite a person under the age of 16 to touch, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person. That last phrase is broad on purpose. The touching allegedly invited can be of the accused's own body, the young person's own body, or anyone else's.

Notice what is missing. There is no requirement that any touching happened. No requirement that anyone met. No requirement that the young person agreed, responded or even understood. The offence is complete, in law, the moment an invitation is made with a sexual purpose. That is why people are so often stunned by this charge: the entire case can rest on a sentence someone says was spoken in a kitchen, or a message someone says arrived on a phone.

It helps to see where section 152 sits among the offences protecting young people, because Crown counsel often charge more than one of them from the same allegation. Our Markham sexual offence lawyer page maps the whole family. In short:

Section 152 is hybrid. On indictment the maximum is 14 years; on summary conviction it is two years less a day. Both routes carry printed minimum sentences, and there is a live constitutional question about those minimums that we deal with further down. What follows is the part most websites skip: how a York Region prosecution is actually assembled, layer by layer, and the checkpoint a defence lawyer applies to each layer.

Layer one: the complaint that starts the file

Almost every section 152 file in Markham begins with a disclosure. A young person says something to a parent, a teacher, a coach, a school counsellor or a friend. Sometimes the statement is immediate and specific. Just as often it surfaces weeks, months or years after the events alleged, in the middle of other family turmoil, and grows or changes as more adults become involved. Schools and child protection agencies routinely pass concerns to police, so a comment made in a classroom on Tuesday can become a York Regional Police file by Friday.

First response in Markham usually runs through YRP's 5 District station at 8700 McCowan Road. From there, allegations of sexual offences against children are handed to the specialized investigators of YRP's Special Victims Unit. York Regional Police also operates an online sexual assault reporting portal, which means complaints, including historical ones, can arrive long after the events they describe. People are sometimes contacted about conduct alleged to have happened five or ten years ago.

A large share of these allegations arise inside households: blended families, extended families sharing a home, family friends, babysitting arrangements. That matters to the defence, because household allegations come wrapped in household dynamics. Separations, custody and parenting disputes, resentments between adults, and loyalty conflicts among children can all shape when an allegation surfaces and what form it takes. Where a family court proceeding is running in parallel, the timing and evolution of a complaint deserve especially careful attention.

The defence checkpoint. None of this gets examined with hostility, and none of it assumes a complainant is lying. But timing, evolution and influence are legitimate subjects of scrutiny in any criminal case, and the law expects defence counsel to scrutinize them. Who did the young person speak to first? What questions were they asked, by whom, how many times? What did each adult add? A careful defence traces the complaint back to its first telling and measures every later version against it.

Layer two: the young person's account

Once the Special Victims Unit takes over, the complainant is usually interviewed on video by investigators trained in child forensic interviewing. That recording tends to become the spine of the Crown's case. The law also provides accommodations for young witnesses at trial, so you should expect the account to be presented in a form designed to reduce the stress of testifying.

The defence job here is delicate and it is done respectfully. Children can be accurate witnesses. They can also absorb suggestion from repeated questioning, collapse separate events into one, misplace time, and pick up details from overheard adult conversations. Memory research and hard courtroom experience both say so. So counsel dissects the interview itself: whether questions were open or leading, whether the account is internally consistent, whether it evolved between tellings, and whether adult conflict around the child gave the account its shape rather than the child's own memory.

There is a way to test a young complainant's evidence without attacking the child, and it matters enormously that it be done that way, both because dignity requires it and because judges and juries punish anything that looks like bullying. This is exactly the kind of cross-examination that should not be attempted by inexperienced counsel.

Layer three: the words themselves

Section 152 is a words-based charge, so the words are the evidence. They come in two forms, and each has its own battleground.

Where the invitation is said to have been spoken, the case is usually one person's account against another's, sometimes years later, with no recording and no witnesses. Precision matters: the exact words, the setting, what came before and after, and whether the phrase the complainant remembers could carry an innocent meaning. The Crown must prove not just that words were said but that they amounted to an invitation, counselling or incitement, and that a sexual purpose lay behind them. Ambiguity on any of those points belongs to the defence.

Where the invitation is said to have been typed, the police will move on devices. Phones and accounts get seized on arrest, and the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Fearon strictly limits what officers may look at without a warrant; full forensic examination generally requires one. How your devices were taken and searched is one of the first things we review, because a Charter breach can lead to the exclusion of evidence. Then the messages themselves get the full-context treatment: the complete thread rather than a screenshot, who actually controlled the account (attribution is a genuine issue in shared households), how sarcasm or a running joke reads when a prosecutor prints it out, and whether the words really carry the sexual purpose the Crown says they do. A single message can ground a charge, but a single message stripped of its context can also mislead everyone who reads it.

One more sorting point belongs here. Where the whole allegation lives online and involves someone the accused never met, or an undercover officer posing as a teenager, the Crown will usually reach for the luring offence instead of or alongside section 152. That is a different charge with its own case law and its own defences, and we cover it on our Markham internet luring lawyer page.

Layer four: arrest, release and conditions you can live with

Some people receive a phone call and a request to attend the station. Others are arrested without warning. Either way, understand this before you say a single word: Special Victims Unit investigators are skilled interviewers, the interview room is designed to produce statements, and people talk themselves into charges every week trying to clear up a misunderstanding. You have the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. Use both. We can speak to the police for you.

Invitation to sexual touching is not one of the rare offences reserved to the Superior Court for bail, so release is dealt with at the Ontario Court of Justice in Newmarket, the courthouse at 50 Eagle Street West that serves every criminal file in York Region. Many people are released by the police themselves on an undertaking with conditions; others need a bail hearing, and if you are alleged to have committed the offence while already on release, the burden at that hearing can shift onto you. Preparation decides these hearings. Our Markham bail lawyer page walks through how we build a release plan before anyone stands up in court.

Conditions deserve as much attention as release itself. In a city like Markham the complainant and the accused often share a school community, a sports club, a plaza, a faith congregation or a house. A standard no-contact and no-go order drafted in thirty seconds can make it impossible to live at home, drive your other children to school or attend your own place of worship. Conditions must be reasonable and connected to the allegation. We negotiate workable terms at the outset and apply to vary the ones that overreach.

Layer five: charge screening, consent and the age rules

Section 152 is hybrid, and the Crown's election matters. On indictment the maximum is 14 years, a preliminary inquiry can be requested, and the registry consequences run longer. Summarily the maximum is two years less a day. Early, informed discussion with the Newmarket Crown about election and resolution is part of the defence job, not an afterthought.

Then come the rules that make offences against people under 16 unlike anything else in the Criminal Code. By section 150.1(1), the complainant's consent is not a defence to a section 152 charge. Parliament has decided that people under 16 cannot legally consent to this conduct, full stop. The only exceptions are the close-in-age rules, and they are precise. Where the complainant is 12 or 13, consent can only be a defence if the accused is less than two years older. Where the complainant is 14 or 15, consent can only be a defence if the accused is less than five years older. And in both situations the defence disappears entirely if the accused was in a position of trust or authority toward the complainant, if the complainant was in a relationship of dependency on the accused, or if the relationship was exploitative.

What about age itself? A belief that the person was 16 or older only helps if the accused took all reasonable steps to ascertain age. That standard comes from section 150.1(4), and the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with it directly in R. v. George (2017), restoring acquittals where the Crown had not proven a failure to take all reasonable steps. The burden framing matters: once the defence is realistically in play on the evidence, it is the Crown that must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. What counts as reasonable steps is intensely factual. What was said about age, what was visible, what the surrounding context suggested, what documents or profiles showed. The same reasonable-steps discipline applies where an accused wants to rely on a mistaken belief about age to access the close-in-age rules.

Layer six: the trial rules that shape what a court hears

Sexual offence trials run on special evidence rules, and they apply to section 152 proceedings just as they do to sexual assault. The rape shield provisions in section 276 bar the two forbidden inferences outright: nobody is allowed to argue that other sexual activity makes a complainant less believable or more likely to have consented. The section reaches communications too, so texts, direct messages and photos of a sexual nature count as sexual activity, and using them at trial requires a written application and a judge's permission in advance.

Private records about the complainant that sit in the accused's own possession, diaries, counselling notes, message histories, even some social media content, are governed by the records screening regime in sections 278.92 to 278.94. Admissibility is decided at a closed pre-trial hearing where the complainant has the right to participate with their own counsel. The Supreme Court upheld this entire structure in R. v. J.J. (2022), so the fight is no longer about whether the regime applies. It is about winning the applications inside it.

The practical consequence is simple and most people find it surprising: a section 152 defence is largely built and argued in writing before anyone testifies. Waiting until the eve of trial to think about these applications is how strong defences get lost. It is also why we start preparing them at the disclosure stage, not after a judicial pre-trial.

What is at stake if every layer holds

Nobody should face this charge without a clear-eyed view of the consequences, so here they are, stated plainly and without drama.

Do not read constitutional litigation about minimums as softness. In R. v. Friesen (2020) the Supreme Court of Canada directed that sentences for sexual offences against children must increase, and Ontario courts have taken that seriously. A conviction under section 152 is a serious sentencing event on any route.

Beyond the sentence itself sit the orders that reshape a life, and we plan for them from the first meeting rather than discovering them at the end:

• The sex offender registry. Section 152 is a primary offence under the federal registry law. A SOIRA order is mandatory in defined circumstances, including an indictable conviction with a sentence of two years or more for an offence against a person under 18, and presumptive in all others unless strict statutory exceptions are established. Registration typically runs 20 years after an indictable conviction and 10 years after a summary one. Ontario's Christopher's Law registry is separate.
• Section 161 prohibition orders. For offences against a person under 16 the court must consider an order restricting attendance at parks, pools, playgrounds, daycares and schoolgrounds, paid or volunteer positions of trust over people under 16, contact with anyone under 16 without approved supervision, and internet use except on court-set conditions. Orders can run for life and can be varied later.
• Publication bans. A section 486.4 ban protects the complainant's identity, not the accused's. Court is presumptively open, though in practice these files rarely attract publicity when handled with discretion.
• Ancillary orders and collateral fallout. Other orders can accompany conviction, and a finding of guilt can carry consequences for employment, volunteering, travel and immigration status. Anyone who is not a Canadian citizen should get immigration advice alongside criminal advice.

When the person charged is a young person

A significant share of allegations under the child-protection sections involve teenagers accused by other teenagers. The process is different from top to bottom. Accused persons aged 12 to 17 proceed under the Youth Criminal Justice Act in youth court, which also sits at the Newmarket courthouse, with stronger privacy protections, different sentencing principles and real off-ramps that adult court does not offer. The Code also builds in a hard limit: a 12 or 13 year old cannot be tried under section 152 at all unless they were in a position of trust, authority, dependency or exploitation toward the complainant.

If your child has been contacted by York Regional Police about an allegation like this, get youth-specific advice before anyone gives a statement. Our Markham youth criminal defence lawyer page explains how these files actually run.

Why Markham families call Kazandji Law

Words-based child sexual offence allegations are among the most stigmatizing charges in the Criminal Code, and they are also among the most defensible when the evidence is tested properly. That combination calls for senior counsel, not a volume practice. At Kazandji Law, founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji handles these files personally: the release plan, the Crown negotiations, the pre-trial applications, the cross-examinations.

We defend without victim-blaming and without theatrics, because that is both right and effective. We move fast on bail and conditions so that clients can keep living at home and working. We arrange interpreters whenever they help, which matters in a city as diverse as Markham. And we keep the file quiet.

Our Thornhill office at 7191 Yonge Street, Suite 310 serves Markham and all of York Region, minutes from Highway 407. The firm's head office is at 180 John Street, Unit 320 in Toronto, with additional offices in North York and Oakville. Cases such as these also intersect with our Markham sexual assault defence practice, and the province-wide picture lives on our Ontario sexual offence lawyers page.

What we do in the first two weeks, and why it changes the ending

People usually call us at one of three moments: after a police phone call inviting them in for a chat, after an arrest, or after a first appearance date arrives in the mail. Whichever moment it is, the first two weeks set the trajectory of a section 152 file, and there is real work to do in them.

Statement discipline comes first. Before anything else we make sure no statement gets given, no apology text gets sent, and no relative starts conducting their own investigation. Well-meaning family members who message the complainant's parents to sort things out can generate fresh charges and hand the Crown its best exhibits. Everything goes quiet, immediately, through counsel.

Conditions get triaged. If release conditions are keeping you out of your home, your job or your children's lives, we start the variation conversation with the Crown right away rather than letting an unworkable order calcify for months. Judges expect conditions to be connected to the allegation. Where they are not, they can be changed.

Evidence gets preserved before it evaporates. Full message threads, account data, call logs, school communications, family court filings, anything that shows the context the prosecution's screenshots leave out. We send preservation instructions early because platforms purge data and memories harden. If devices were seized, we document exactly what was taken and start the record on how it was searched.

Disclosure gets demanded and actually read. The Crown must hand over the investigative file: the forensic interview video, officers' notes, the portal report if one exists, device extraction reports, everything. We read all of it against the first telling of the complaint, because the differences between version one and version four are often where a defence lives.

The litigation calendar gets built backwards. Because the section 276 and records applications that decide these trials are written and argued in advance, we map them from day one: what evidence we will need permission to use, what records exist, what expert help the file calls for. A defence that starts at the judicial pre-trial is already late.

And through all of it, we keep one eye on the parallel proceedings that so often ride alongside a Markham file: a family court case, a children's aid inquiry, a school investigation. What is said in one forum echoes in the others. Coordinating them is part of defending the criminal charge, not a separate errand.

Markham invitation to sexual touching FAQ

This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts, and nothing here creates a lawyer and client relationship. If you are facing an allegation in Markham or anywhere in York Region, speak with a lawyer about your specific situation. Kazandji Law, 180 John Street, Unit 320, Toronto, Ontario. Free consultations: 647-588-3234.