Legal Error, Not Lack of Evidence, Led to Fatal Boat Crash Acquittal
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
A Court of Appeal ruling reveals that a trial judge's narrow interpretation of 'care or control' allowed a man to walk free after two people died in a Lake Ontario wreck.
The pursuit of justice for Megan Wu, 24, and Julio Abrantes, 34, was derailed not by a lack of evidence, but by a fundamental failure in the courtroom, as Global News Toronto first reported.
In May 2025, Mississauga man Filip Grkovski was acquitted of multiple charges, including criminal negligence causing death and impaired operation of a conveyance causing death, following a judge-alone trial. The crash occurred on May 31, 2022, when Grkovski's boat struck rocks off Tommy Thompson Park near Toronto's Outer Harbour Marina and flipped over. While eight passengers survived, Wu and Abrantes were trapped beneath the vessel and died.
According to reporting from Global News Toronto, the acquittal rested on a critical legal narrowing of the case. The Crown had presented two theories of liability. One theory alleged that Grkovski operated the boat while impaired. The second was that even if Grkovski had ceded the wheel to a friend, Edward Denkha, Grkovski remained liable because he was continuously operating the boat—navigating, assisting in navigation, or maintaining 'care or control' of the vessel.
In a devastating turn for the victims' families, the trial judge accepted the defense's argument to discard the second theory entirely. By ruling that the Crown's only viable path to conviction was proving Grkovski was the driver at the moment of impact, the judge effectively blinded the court to the broader responsibilities of a captain. Once the judge accepted Grkovski's testimony that he was not driving at the time of the crash, an acquittal was inevitable.
This was a failure of judicial interpretation. A three-judge panel from the Court of Appeal recently ruled that the trial judge used an incorrect interpretation of "care or control." The appellate court found that the trial judge failed to consider the legal duty Grkovski held as the owner and captain overseeing the boat's return to the marina, regardless of who was physically steering.
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**Opinion:** The initial trial process failed the basic test of accountability. When a captain oversees a vessel, the law should not allow them to escape liability simply by stepping away from the wheel seconds before a catastrophe. By ignoring the 'care or control' evidence, the trial judge didn't just make a legal error; she ignored the reality of maritime responsibility.
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The evidence of impairment was stark. Global News Toronto reports that a toxicologist provided unchallenged testimony that Grkovski's blood alcohol level was over 80 mg in 100 ml of blood in a sample taken within two hours of the crash. The toxicologist also detected benzoylecgonine in Grkovski's blood. While the expert could not definitively state that cocaine was producing an effect at the exact moment of the crash, she testified that the combination of alcohol and cocaine increases impairment.
Because the trial judge failed to grapple with the evidentiary record regarding the captain's duty, the Court of Appeal has now ordered a new trial. A date for the proceedings has not yet been set.