Can A Formal Admission Follow You Into A Later Trial? Wiwchar Sets A High Bar For Transposing Admissions Between Criminal Trials

If you make a formal admission in one criminal trial, can the Crown use it in a later, unrelated prosecution—even for an offence that was not charged when you made the admission? R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 [Wiwchar] is the first decision in British Columbia to address this question. On the facts of that case, the court said “no”. However, the decision rests on novel grounds of policy and principle that sit uneasily with emerging Ontario authority on the topic, signalling continuing unpredictability in this area of law.

Key Takeaways

In regulatory investigations and prosecutions, regulated entities often use formal admissions (such as agreed statements of facts, formal settlement agreements, or guilty pleas) to narrow issues, manage cost, and reduce reputational risk. Wiwchar is a reminder that admissions made to resolve one proceeding can create downstream risk if prosecutors later try to repurpose them in other proceedings, including for allegations that were not on the table when the admissions were made.¹

Overall, Wiwchar underscores the importance of seeking legal advice and considering express limitations before making formal admissions in the regulatory or criminal context, given the unpredictable downstream risks of such admissions. Three practical takeaways emerge from this case:

1. First, while a privative/limitation clause (i.e., an express clause in an admission that limits its use in other proceedings) remains a useful tool to guard against its later, collateral use, the absence of such a clause is not determinative of admissibility.
2. Second, timing matters. Wiwchar gives strong policy reasons to exclude formal admissions in a later trial where, when the admissions were made, the accused had no notice of the later charges and therefore could not make an informed decision (or obtain advice) about the consequences. These considerations may apply with less force where admissions are made after parallel charges are laid.
3. Third, admissibility is fact-specific and may vary by jurisdiction. Wiwchar’s focus on systemic policy concerns (including the risk of a chilling effect on admissions that would undermine long and complex trials) is a notable shift from the more individualized approach taken in the Ontario cases. Wiwchar’s discussion of the implied limitations on the use of formal admissions also sits in tension with the Ontario case-law. Ultimately, this means that what is protected in one jurisdiction may not be in another.

Background

While the facts of the Wiwchar case involved violent criminal offences, the principles from this decision are likely to have broad application in other regulatory and quasi-criminal contexts.

Dean Wiwchar was on trial for murder and conspiracy to murder in connection with a 2012 shooting at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre. Charges were laid in January 2018. However, between the shooting and the laying of those charges, Mr. Wiwchar stood trial for, and was convicted of, several firearms offences in British Columbia (the 2015 “Firearms Trial”) and a murder in Ontario (the 2017 “Raposo Murder Trial”). 

In both the Raposo Murder Trial and the Firearms Trial, Mr. Wiwchar made numerous formal admissions under s. 655 of the Criminal Code [Code] (which permits an accused to admit any fact alleged against them for the purpose of dispensing with proof of the fact). He made the admissions voluntarily and with the benefit of counsel, ostensibly to streamline those trials and narrow the issues in dispute.

The Crown sought to introduce the admissions from the Raposo Murder Trial and the Firearms Trial as evidence in the trial of the Wall Centre shooting. It argued the admissions were presumptively admissible and should be treated as “informal admissions against interest”, meaning they should be received as inconclusive evidence that Mr. Wiwchar could challenge or explain as he saw fit. The Crown relied on Ontario authority, including R. v. Baksh, (2005) 2005 CanLII 24918 (ONSC) [Baksh] and R. v. Lo, 2020 ONCA 622 [Lo], which supported admitting formal admissions for this purpose, where there were no express or implied limitations on their use.

Mr. Wiwchar opposed the Crown’s application, arguing that he would never have made the admissions if he had known they could be used in this way. A court-appointed lawyer (amicus curiae) supported his opposition on grounds of policy and principle, noting that the potential collateral use of formal admissions is not likely to be on the radar of defence counsel focused on defending a particular indictment. Amicus emphasized that the ruling sought by the Crown would have a chilling effect on the use of admissions in criminal trials. Amicus also noted that Lo (which found admissions from a disciplinary hearing admissible in a related criminal trial) had already had such an effect in the disciplinary hearing context.

The Decision

Justice Ker dismissed the Crown’s application. She held that the prior formal admissions made in the Firearms Trial and the Raposo Murder Trial were not presumptively admissible as informal admissions in the current trial.

Justice Ker noted her “grave reservations”² about the “breath-taking”³ ramifications of the order sought by the Crown. Central to her analysis was the concern that ruling for the Crown would chill the responsible use of admissions by counsel, and that such admissions are essential to the smooth and efficient running of trials—particularly complex and lengthy trials. She also expressed concerns about fairness to Mr. Wiwchar, who was self-represented at trial and might be “force[d]… into the witness stand” to contradict the admissions.⁴

Justice Ker distinguished Baksh and Lo, noting that each was properly confined to its unique facts: either a retrial on the same indictment (Baksh) or parallel proceedings on the same subject matter (Lo). In any event, she emphasized that these Ontario decisions were not binding on her.

Nor was the absence of express or implied limitations on the use of the admissions determinative in the circumstances. First, it was arguable that the admissions did, in fact, contain an “implicit limitation by virtue of the fact that they were made in the context of a specific trial on a specific indictment”.⁵ In any event, Justice Ker had temporal concerns with this argument, as the indictment in question had not been laid when the admissions were made. She emphasized that it was “difficult to conceive how defence counsel could contemplate the ramifications and potential consequences of making the admissions for an as-yet uncharged offence”⁶ and that it was similarly “difficult to fathom”⁷ how an accused could be taken to have made an informed waiver in respect of uncharged events.

Footnotes

1 See our previous commentary, in the civil context, on the use of regulatory settlement agreements as evidence to support class action certification.

2 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 78.

3 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 16.

4 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 81.

5 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 39.

6 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 80 [emphasis added].

7 R. v. Wiwchar, 2025 BCSC 580 at para. 40.

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