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→Information for accused persons
===Information for accused persons===
It is the policy of the provincial Ministry of Justice that incidents of spousal assault are to be treated as significant crimes. As a result, if your spouse partner accuses you of assault, you may be arrested and you could be taken to jail overnight.
If this happens, you will appear before a justice of the peace or a judge for a bail hearing. If you are arrested on a Friday, this may mean that you'll spend the weekend in custody, although provincial court judges are usually available by telephone or video link. At the bail hearing, the judge will normally require that you promise to follow certain conditions if you want to be released from custody. If you do not agree to abide by the terms the judge wants, you will not be released and you'll stay in jail until the hearing of the charges against you.
Other conditions might include restrictions on your use of alcohol and drugs, a curfew, a requirement that you report to a parole officer or the police, a requirement that you not go within a certain number of blocks of the complainant's home, a requirement that you not possess firearms or other weapons, and so forth.
The conditions which the judge requires will be written down in a document called a ''Recognizance'' or an ''Undertaking''. It is critical that you follow the terms set out in your recognizance. If you don't, you can be arrested for breaching them, and face a criminal trial on that charge as well. The terms of your recognizance will remain in effect until the trial or until they are changed at a hearing before trial.
====Lawyers and your bail hearing====