R v Singh, 2026 ABCA 219

Decided June 30, 2026

Mr. Singh brought this appeal regarding his conviction for theft over $5,000. The charge stemmed from allegations that Mr. Singh had stolen from his employer, Fancy Windows Manufacturing Limited (FWML) by keeping money that customers had given him as payment for their window orders.

The appeal argued that the trial judge reached an unreasonable verdict that was unsupported by the evidence, did not consider reasonable alternatives to the appellant’s guilt, and failed to consider the impact of the animus between himself and the Crown’s key witness, Mr. Cheung.

FWML was a company that manufactured windows for commercial and residential buildings. The company had over 100 employees and over $20 million in yearly sales.

Mr. Singh was employed by FWML as a general manager from April 2019 until his termination for cause on December 30, 2021. The allegations were that Mr. Singh would simply pocket cash payments made by customers and alter the company records to conceal the theft. Evidence at trial confirmed that FWML customers would often pay cash and that Mr. Singh would sometimes accept cash payments from customers.  

Mr. Cheung testified that he first became suspicious when he realized some files including window orders and quotes were missing. Mr. Cheung then investigated, searching for order numbers in FWML’s files. Mr. Cheung identified 23 orders that he could not locate and believed that Mr. Singh had accepted cash payments for the windows, then deleted the orders once they were in production. This prevented an invoice from being generated and allowed Mr. Singh to keep the cash payment.

The ABCA, reviewing the trial judge’s decision, highlighted that Mr. Cheung was primarily involved in the production side of FWML’s operations. He was not an accountant, was not involved in FWML’s accounting, and did not have an accountant check his work. Once police were contacted, they did not review Mr. Cheung’s investigation into the missing documents. In fact, Mr. Cheung admitted during trial that FWML’s accountants had not raised any concerns about irregularities.

Mr. Cheung also admitted that his investigation into the missing files would not have found any invoices that were only partially paid, and he did not consider any discounts that the orders may have received. By the end of trial, 20 of the 23 “missing” transactions were conceded by the Crown to not qualify as proof of the offence. Some of the “missing” documents simply had the customer’s name misspelled or erroneously used a person’s name instead of the corporate client. FWML’s banking records were not introduced as evidence.

As the evidence against Mr. Singh was purely circumstantial, the ABCA asked whether the trial judge had properly applied the test from Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33, which asks the trier of fact to consider whether the accused’s guilt was the only reasonable conclusion available based on the evidence. The trial judge did not cite Villaroman in their decision at all. No corporate bank records were introduced to show that the cash payments were not deposited. The trial judge acknowledged that fact and considered Mr. Cheung’s testimony to be sufficient to establish that Mr. Singh took the money. This was despite Mr. Cheung’s admission that he had no involvement in FWML’s accounting.

The ABCA considered this to be an error, exacerbated by the fact that the trial judge seemed to reverse the burden of proof in her remarks that the lack of deposits “that directly accord with the full amount of the payments ... does not in and of [itself] raise a reasonable doubt as to whether the [appellant] kept the cash”.

The failure by the trial judge to properly consider all reasonable possibilities other than Mr. Singh’s guilt was fatal to the decision. The ABCA overturned the conviction and entered an acquittal.