Re: Michael (Jamieson) Smith
ORB File No: 6863
Hearing held on: Thursday, June 12, 2025
Place of hearing: St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, West 5th Campus Hamilton, Ontario
Pursuant to: Section 672.81(1) of the Criminal Code
Before:
Alternate Chairperson: Ms. L. Maunder Members: Dr. P. Darby Dr. G. Stones Mr. R. Bigelow Mr. A. Mete
Parties Appearing:
Accused: Michael J. Smith Counsel: Ms. C. Francis
The Person in Charge of Hospital: Counsel: Ms. L. Barney
Attorney General of Ontario: Counsel: Mr. I. Shaikh
REASONS FOR DISPOSITION
(Dated: July 25, 2025)
Introduction
On November 19, 2015, Michael (Jamieson) Smith was found not criminally responsible on Criminal Code charges of mischief – endangering life and arson – damage to property. At the time of the hearing, Mr. Smith was subject to an order detaining him at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, with privileges up to and including entering the community on indirectly supervised passes. On June 12, 2025, the Board convened to conduct an annual review of Mr. Smith’s disposition.
The parties all agreed that the necessary and appropriate disposition was a continuation of the detention order under the same terms. Significant threat was conceded. Thus, we had a joint submission. For the reasons set out below, the panel found that the evidence established that Mr. Smith remained a significant threat and we agreed that a detention order remained necessary and appropriate under the same terms.
The Index Offences
On August 23, 2014, Mr. Smith started three separate fires in the basement apartment of a home owned by his grandmother and mother. His grandmother was upstairs, alone at the time. Firefighters put out the fire but the bedroom in the basement was destroyed.
Mr. Smith provided a detailed (and false) story to the police about how the fire was accidental. He later described “extensive bizarre paranoid delusions” involving him being targeted and fearing he would be killed, that led to him lighting the fire.
Background / Context
Mr. Smith is 41 years old. His parents separated when he was three years old. He was anxious as a child. He was a good student and was in his third year of university when his illness interfered with his educational progress.
Mr. Smith used alcohol and cannabis moderately. He has no history of substance use disorders.
Mr. Smith had extensive contact with psychiatric care prior to the index offences. He was hospitalized several times beginning in 2008 when he was 24 years old. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. In 2009, he spent seven months in hospital over two admissions. He was prescribed antipsychotic medication and mood stabilizing medication. He was also trialed on clozapine. Mr. Smith has a history of non-adherence to medication and was, at times, subject to a Community Treatment Order.
When unwell, Mr. Smith was agitated, demanding, threatening, delusional, and impulsively aggressive. He assaulted those around him, including his mother and father. He was socially isolated.
Mr. Smith’s criminal record consists of a conviction for assault (upon his mother) in 2007 and another assault (upon his father) in 2014. Mr. Smith had apparently also assaulted his father prior to 2007 leading to a peace bond. Mr. Smith has stated that he was charged and plead guilty to another assault (against “a woman”).
Under the jurisdiction of the Review Board, Mr. Smith was initially in and out of hospital. His condition improved with medications but he experienced residual symptoms.
Mr. Smith was living in the community when in March 2018, he grabbed the arm of a female staff person at his residence and then chased her through the home. He was returned to hospital. He learned to use CBT to help him cope with his residual symptoms.
Mr. Smith stabilized in hospital. The team decided he needed higher support housing. In November 2018, he was discharged to Emmaus Place, transitional housing. It offers independent apartments but also 24-hour supervision and medication administration. Mr. Smith remained there until September 2022.
In late August 2022, Mr. Smith broke his curfew and said he had gone out to “decompress” in response to auditory hallucinations. He walked and “considered picking up a girl” but was unsuccessful in doing so. He returned without incident.
On September 4, 2022, Mr. Smith was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual assault. He was alleged to have approached two McMaster students on a trail near the University and asked them “if they wanted to have some fun”. When they said no, he attempted to grab the buttocks of one of the women and then chased them. He grabbed the arm of one of the women and tried to pull her pants down from her waistband. He released her when the other woman began to call the police. Mr. Smith was released on bail and immediately readmitted to hospital. Mr. Smith declined to discuss the charges with the team on the advice of his lawyer.
Mr. Smith remained in hospital, pending his trial. His mental state was stable. He continued to experience symptoms of his illness but did not find them particularly distressing. His occasional problematic behaviours (yelling, environmental aggression) were attributed to his coping with derogatory voices or “demons”.
The Current Year
Dr. O. Lee, a sixth-year forensic psychiatry resident working under the supervision of Dr. O. Kolawole, testified at the hearing. Dr. Lee had been involved in Mr. Smith’s care since mid-March 2025, and she had read and adopted the Hospital Report.
Mr. Smith’s current diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder.
Dr. Lee described Mr. Smith’s mental state as “largely stable”. He continues to experience residual symptoms but manages them mostly independently. He uses PRN medication infrequently. Episodes of him being disturbed by derogatory, but not commanding, voices usually happen at night and last about 30 minutes. He might hit a wall or yell. He usually responds to redirection from staff.
Mr. Smith mostly does not participate in programs but spends his time walking, listening to music, and watching television.
In the early part of the reporting period, Mr. Smith was regularly exercising indirectly supervised passes into the community by going out with his mother and his sister.
The most significant update was the resolution of the charges Mr. Smith was facing. In December 2024, he plead guilty to one count of sexual assault and the other count was withdrawn (apparently because the complainant was not interested in pursuing the matter). In March 2025, Mr. Smith was sentenced to a nine-month conditional sentence followed by three years probation, in addition to a Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) order and weapons prohibition, each for ten years, and a DNA order. The terms of his conditional sentence order require that he remain in hospital. He is permitted to be unsupervised only within the secure perimeter, and permitted to be on the hospital grounds, only while accompanied by staff.
Following the resolution of the sexual assault charges, Mr. Smith agreed to participate in a psychosexual risk assessment (required under the terms of his conditional sentence). He cooperated fully with a battery of tests and by providing detailed information, including about subjects he was obviously uncomfortable discussing. Mr. Smith did not meet the full criteria for a diagnosis of a personality disorder but presented with some narcissistic and antisocial personality traits, and some behavioural instability associated with his psychotic symptoms. Regarding his sexual interests and behaviours, the assessment concluded:
Mr. Smith endorsed some aspects of hypersexuality (ie, use of sex as coping and lack of control of sexual behaviours). He also endorsed some arousal to sexual behaviors that are dominating, controlling and coercive. Additionally, he endorsed some arousal to voyeuristic and frotteuristic sexual behaviours. Results from sexual preference testing also indicated problematic sexual arousal patterns in non-coercive and coercive depictions of sexual activity with female prepubescent children, which was indiscriminate to his response to appropriate adult consenting sexual stimuli. Taken together, although Mr. Smith does not meet diagnostic criteria for a Paraphilic Disorder, there is evidence for problematic sexual interests across dimensions of age, coercion and activity.
As a result of these findings and in conjunction with his personality style, symptoms and poor coping, Mr. Smith’s risk for sexual violence was considered above average.
Significant Threat
- The panel was satisfied that Mr. Smith remained a significant threat to the safety of the public. As set out in the Hospital Report, Mr. Smith suffers from a severe intractable mental disorder (schizoaffective disorder). He experiences residual symptoms even when optimally treated, has limited insight, decompensates rapidly, and engages in violence. As evidenced by events in 2022, even when he appears to be managing his residual symptoms and stable, he may impulsively respond to the stress of his symptom load by engaging in criminal conduct that poses a real risk of causing serious physical or psychological harm to others. The risk he poses has not changed since then. He remains a significant threat.
Necessary and Appropriate Disposition
- The panel concluded that the necessary and appropriate disposition was a continuation of the detention order on the same terms as last year, as jointly recommended by the parties. Mr. Smith remains detained in hospital and will not be able to enter the community until the completion of his conditional sentence at the end of the year. After that, the team plans on working with Mr. Smith to gradually increase his passes. With the added information the team has, from the sexual assault itself and the psychosexual assessment, it is abundantly clear that the hospital will need to closely supervise and assess the risk as Mr. Smith is granted increased liberty. They will need to go slowly. A continuation of the existing detention order (that does not include the privilege of living in the community) is the necessary and appropriate disposition.
DATED this 25th day of July 2025, at the City of Toronto, in the Toronto Region.
Leslie Maunder Alternate Chairperson
Office of the Registrar Ontario Review Board