Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2025-06-12
Docket: COA-24-CR-0329
Coram: Michael Tulloch, John C. MacPherson, Lorne Sossin

Between:
His Majesty the King (Respondent)
and
Padraig Teggart (Appellant)

Appearances:
Paul Socka, for the appellant
Dena Bonnet, for the respondent

Heard: 2025-06-05

On appeal from the disposition of Justice Mary Teresa E. Devlin of the Ontario Court of Justice, dated September 29, 2023.

Reasons for Decision

Introduction

[1] This appeal challenges a decision by the application judge designating the appellant as a “high risk accused” (“HRA”). At the hearing, we dismissed the appeal with reasons to follow. These are our reasons.

Background

[2] On May 11, 2022, the appellant attacked his mother while they were alone together in their home. The appellant struck her in the head with an unknown object and stabbed her several times with a knife. When his mother tried to flee, the appellant physically prevented her from leaving and forced her headfirst into a wall, which incapacitated her. When she regained consciousness, she attempted to exit the home again. The accused choked her until she lost consciousness. The appellant then began to cut her, causing significant facial wounds. His mother was eventually able to exit the residence but was pursued by the appellant, who pinned her down outside the home. Several witnesses heard the appellant’s mother screaming for help and called 911. The appellant grabbed his mother by the hair and dragged her back into the garage of the home. Soon after, the police arrived, and the appellant was arrested without incident. His mother had significant injuries but received medical treatment and survived the attack. Prior to the incident, the appellant was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

[3] The appellant was found not criminally responsible (“NCR”) after a guilty plea for attempted murder. Subsequently, the Crown brought an application seeking to have the appellant designated as a high-risk accused, which is the subject of this appeal.

[4] The application judge determined that a substantial likelihood exists that the appellant will use violence that could endanger the life or safety of others and designated the appellant an HRA.

The Statutory Scheme

[5] On appeal, the appellant argues that the application judge erred in her interpretation and application of the “substantial likelihood” test in s. 672.64(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46.

[6] Since the scheme was enacted in 2014, the Crown may apply under s. 672.64 to have an NCR accused designated an HRA at any time after the NCR verdict and before they have been absolutely discharged under s. 672.54(a). Where an HRA designation is imposed, the NCR accused must be detained for as long as the designation remains active. The designation can only be removed if the Review Board refers the matter to the Superior Court for review upon being satisfied that there is not a substantial likelihood that the NCR accused will use violence endangering life or safety. There are three requirements for an HRA designation:

1. The NCR accused must have been found NCR for a designated serious personal injury offence as defined in s. 672.81(1.3);
2. The NCR accused must have been at least 18 years or older at the time of the index offence; and
3. At least one of the following HRA pathways must be met:
   • There must be a “substantial likelihood that the accused will use violence that could endanger the life or safety of another person” (the “substantial likelihood” pathway); or
   • The index offence must have been of “such a brutal nature as to indicate a risk of grave physical or psychological harm to another person” (the “brutality” pathway).

The High-Risk Accused Standard

[7] As this court stated in R. v. Hadfield, 2024 ONCA 46, para 18, a “high-risk accused” designation is “exceptional in nature and should be imposed sparingly.” The court described this standard in the following terms, at paras. 12-13:

As such, the “substantial likelihood” language of s.672.64(1)(a) requires a risk level higher than the “significant threat” characterization found in s. 672.54 for Review Board jurisdiction. In Winko v. British Columbia (Forensic Psychiatric Institute), 1999 SCC 694, para 62, McLachlin J. (as she then was) described the latter at para. 62 as a “real risk of physical or psychological harm … that is serious in the sense of going beyond the merely trivial or annoying.” In describing the distinction, Devlin J. stated in R. v. Schoenborn, 2017 BCSC 1556, para 42:

[T]he statutory context and legislative history support the conclusion that Parliament intended to require a finding of a greater level of risk for a[n] HRA designation under s. 672.64(1)(a) than is necessary to keep a[n] NCR accused under Review Board jurisdiction under s. 672.54. The purpose of the HRA regime is to protect the public from NCR accused who are considered to present an unacceptably high risk, requiring a further reduction in their liberty in the form of mandatory custodial detention and other restrictions. It would be illogical to ground these liberty deprivations in the same level of risk that is already required to maintain Review Board jurisdiction over a[n] NCR accused in the pre-existing NCRMD regime, which already provides for custodial detention where necessary. To do so would unduly broaden the scope of the HRA criteria and result in an interpretation that would not properly reflect the scheme or object of the legislation. It would not reflect the object of the legislation because it would potentially capture those who do not pose an unacceptably high risk to members of the public.

The use of the words “substantial likelihood” denotes a high degree of probability that the accused will endanger either the life or safety of another.

The Application Judge’s Reasons

[8] In this case, the application judge was candid in stating that she was unfamiliar with the HRA scheme. In response, trial counsel provided the court with the decision in R. v. Schoenborn, 2017 BCSC 1556, 354 C.C.C. (3d) 393, and identified for the judge that the purpose of the HRA was to protect the public from an accused who is considered an “unacceptably high risk”. The Crown referred the application judge to additional precedents, including R. v. Grant, 2018 ONSC 3581, and the trial decision in R. v. Hadfield, 2022 ONSC 2047. The application judge took a recess to ensure she had time to review this decision and the test to be applied to make an HRA determination, and offered the parties an opportunity to make further submissions. Subsequently, the application judge set out her findings on the HRA designation in the following terms:

Mr. Teggart's case is quite different from the facts in Schoenborn. In Schoenborn, the accused murdered his three children and was found to be not criminally responsible. The Crown's high-risk accused application was heard seven years after the offences were committed. At the time of the hearing, Mr. Schoenborn's delusional disorder was in remission and he was compliant with his medication. Like Mr. Teggart, Mr. Schoenborn's violent tendencies were directed to his family. By virtue of the deaths of his children, he was considered to pose a lower risk. Mr. Teggart's parents and sister are all alive and understandably deeply fearful that Mr. Teggart could seriously injure them and/or kill them.

…I am satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood that Mr. Teggart will use violence that could endanger the life or safety of another person, particularly his own family members based on the following:

1. Mr. Teggart continues to suffer from delusions and [in] particular the delusion that his family members are imposters;
2. Mr. Teggart harbours a deep sense of anger, especially towards his family members;
3. Mr. Teggart's schizophrenia is still described as treatment-resistant;
4. Mr. Teggart's symptoms have been escalating since at least 2016.

Standard of Review

[9] The standard of review to be applied on an appeal from a disposition is set out in s. 672.78(1) of the Criminal Code. A judge’s decision on whether or not to make an HRA designation is entitled to deference on appeal, and an appeal should only be allowed where the court is of the opinion that the decision: (a) is unreasonable and cannot be supported by the evidence; (b) is based on a wrong decision on a question of law; or (c) there was a miscarriage of justice.

Grounds of Appeal

[10] The appellant argues that the failure of the application judge to demonstrate the heightened “substantial likelihood” standard was being applied in this case amounted to a “wrong decision on a question of law.”

[11] We disagree. The application judge’s decision reveals no such error.

[12] The application judge acknowledged that she was not familiar with the HRA framework and properly took the time needed to ensure she was familiar with the case law raised by trial counsel relating to the test to be applied. Her reasons make clear that she was alive to the heightened standard required, as set out in Schoenborn, and the other cases she referenced in her reasons. In particular, she highlighted, appropriately in our view, the aspects of the record on which she relied in concluding that the substantial likelihood risk standard was met.

[13] The appellant further argues that the application judge failed to appropriately address the s. 672.64(2) factors in determining the “substantial likelihood” question. Those factors consist of: (a) the nature and circumstances of the offence; (b) any pattern of repetitive behaviour of which the offence forms a part; (c) the accused’s current mental condition; (d) the past and expected course of the accused’s treatment, including the accused’s willingness to follow treatment; and (e) the opinions of experts who have examined the accused.

[14] The appellant argues that the record before the application judge suggested that these factors pulled in different directions and that she failed to weigh and reconcile these various factors. More specifically, the appellant suggested that the application judge did not properly address the opinion of the experts (and in particular, Dr. Pearce’s conclusion that the appellant posed a “low to moderate” risk of future, violent recidivism), the appellant’s expected course of treatment and his escalating pattern of repetitive behaviour.

[15] We are not persuaded by this argument.

[16] It is clear from her reasons that the application judge considered the expert opinions and that her findings that the appellant “continues to suffer from delusions” and that his schizophrenia remains “treatment-resistant” were rooted in the record before her. Even Dr. Pearce observed that the appellant continued to harbour the belief that the person he had attacked in the index offence was not his mother, but an imposter.

[17] With respect to the pattern of repetitive behaviour, the application judge referred to evidence in the record of “several involuntary admissions to hospital.” The appellant contends that the application judge relied on prior allegations of conduct rather than proven findings. As the respondent emphasizes, however, the statutory factor refers to a pattern of repetitive behaviour, not necessarily a criminal record. In our view, the application judge did not err in her reliance on the similar, prior instances of threatening conduct by the appellant towards his family in the record, and, as the respondent emphasizes, this aspect of the record also formed part of the basis for the appellant’s NCR designation.

Conclusion

[18] For these reasons, we dismissed the appeal.

“Michael Tulloch”
“John C. MacPherson”
“Lorne Sossin”