Last year my son was charged with 2 counts of driving causing…

1) What action can your son take against the Crown in the original driving case?

This is a difficult question to answer without reviewing the disclosure. If the Crown intentially misled the Court, he or she could be found guilty of contempt, possible charged and certainly sanctioned by the law society. That said, from what I gather from the facts, it sounds like there were an number of different views of what happened. If your son's lawyer accepted the facts and there was at least some air of reality to what the Crown said, there is very little you can do.

1b) We want to know what action he can also take against the lawyer for misrepresenting information about consequences etc. and not giving him adequate legal advice prior to my son making his plea.

There are two avenues you could pursue with respect to this question. You could sue your lawyer and attempt to seek monetary damages or you could report the lawyer to the law society. I recommend you seek a civil lawyer.

2) Can your son appeal his pleading of guilt in the original driving case?

The test to appeal a guilty plea is the same as the test to strike a plea.
Voluntariness
A plea of guilty must be voluntary in the sense that the plea is a conscious volitional decision of the accused to plead guilty for those reasons which he or she regards XXXXX XXXXX
Ordinarily a plea of guilty involves certain inherent and external pressures. Plea negotiations in which the prosecution pursues a plea of guilty in exchange for forgoing legal avenues open to it, or agrees not to pursue certain charges, do not render the subsequent plea involuntary. What is unacceptable is coercive or oppressive conduct of others or any circumstance personal to the individual which unfairly deprives the accused of free choice in the decision not to go to trial. There is, of course, no closed list of circumstances calling into question the voluntariness of a guilty plea, however, they can include pressure from the court , pressure from defence counsel, incompetence of defence counsel, cognitive impairment or emotional disintegration of the accused or the effect of illicit drugs or prescribed medications.
While it is true that a valid guilty plea must be a voluntary, unequivocal and informed admission of the elements of the offence, there are many factual aspects that will impact the court’s decision whether or not an appeal of a guilty plea will succeed, and there are a number of hurdles to overcome. In T.(R.), 1992 CanLII 2834 (C.A.), the Ontario Court of Appeal held that where the validity of a plea is challenged for the first time on appeal, the accused bears the heavy onus of showing that the plea was invalid.

Ineffective Counsel

The following are the principals relating to the law of effective legal counsel
1. An accused that is represented by counsel at trial is entitled to receive effective legal assistance.
2. The onus is upon the appellant to show ineffective representation had the effect of rendering her trial unfair - absent that showing there is neither a Charter breach nor a miscarriage of justice.
3. It would be a rare case where, after conviction, some aspect of defence counsel's performance could not be subjected to legitimate criticism. In other words, what the accused may expect is "reasonable competence, not perfect advocacy judged with the benefit of hindsight.
4. The appellant must demonstrate counsel's performance was deficient measured in light of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms. The analysis has been described in this way:
“Judicial scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential. It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel's assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel's defence after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable. A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time. Because of the difficulties inherent in making the evaluation, a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the defendant must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action "might be considered sound trial strategy." [citations omitted] There are countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case. Even the best criminal defense attorneys would not defend a particular client in the same way.
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Thus, a court deciding an actual ineffectiveness claim must judge the reasonableness of counsel's challenged conduct on the facts of the particular case, viewed as of the time of counsel's conduct. A convicted defendant making a claim of ineffective assistance must identify the acts or omissions of counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgment.
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In accepting the reasonably competent lawyer standard, I do not detract from the often repeated caution against characterizing errors in judgment as negligence. Lawyers make many decisions in the course of a lawsuit. Those decisions require the exercise of judgment. Inevitably, some of those decisions, when viewed with the benefit of hindsight, will be seen as unwise. The reasonable lawyer standard does not call for an assessment of the sagacity of the decision made by the lawyer. The standard demands that the lawyer bring to the exercise of his or her judgment the effort, knowledge and insight of the reasonably competent lawyer. If the lawyer has met that standard, his or her duty to the client is discharged, even if the decision proves to be disastrous.
5. In many situations, counsel will have a wide range of options any of which, if taken, will constitute reasonably competent representation. Accordingly, deference to a broad range of defence trial strategy is appropriate - "counsel has wide latitude in deciding how to best represent a client". Appellate courts must give deference to counsel's choices and "the competence standard must be informed by a presumption in favour of competence".
6. The reasonableness standard reflects the fact-specific inquiry demanded by incompetence claims. A "case-by-case examination of the evidence" is required.
Simply put, the onus is high to strike your plea because of counsel.

3) Can he charge the police for beating him up?
Your son can file a complaint with the police and ask that the officer be charged. Practically, I rarely see the police willing to charge their own without collaboration. I also feel you should advise your criminal lawyer who is dealing with the new charge about being beat up as he could bring a charter application and ask for a stay based on the police beating him up.

Edited by Mark MacDonald on 11/6/2010 at 4:20 PM EST