“The respondent mother sought to file two video recordings to support her allegations regarding the applicant’s drinking and abusive behaviour. The applicant was not able to view the videos until after he filed his reply materials.
Both of the video recordings are presumptively inadmissible. The prejudicial effect of secret recordings is presumed to outweigh their probative value in family law proceedings except in the most limited circumstances: Whidden v. Ellwood, 2016 ONSC 6938 at paras. 96-98, Van Ruyen v. Van Ruyven, 2021 ONSC 5963 at para. 41.
Making a surreptitious video of one’s intimate partner offends the privacy interests of the partner and the family. Such videos are destructive to the maintenance, restructuring, and encouragement of constructive family relationships: Veljanovski v Veljanovski, 2016 ONSC 2047 (CanLII) at para. 49. As Justice Pazaratz observed in Whidden v Ellwood at para. 86, the “obvious reality is that taking videos is a strategic act of aggression and escalation”.”