Re David Love, 2025 CanLII 92526

Re: David Love

ORB File No: 7828

Hearing held on: Thursday, July 24, 2025

Place of hearing: St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton West 5th Campus, 100 West 5th Street

Pursuant to: Section 672.81(2.1) of the Criminal Code

Before:

Alternate Chairperson: Ms. T. Mann

Members: Dr. A Park Dr. G. Kerry Mr. D. D’Intino Ms. C. Plyley

Parties Appearing:

Accused: David Love Counsel: Mr. L. Dmitry

The person in charge of hospital: Counsel: Mr. S. O’Brien

Attorney General of Ontario: Counsel: Ms. J. McKenzie

REASONS FOR DECISION

(Dated September 8, 2025)

Introduction

1. David Love was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) on December 7, 2020, of the offence of assault causing bodily harm, contrary to section 267(b) of the Criminal Code of Canada (the Code).

2. Mr. Love is currently subject to a Disposition of the Ontario Review Board, (the “Board”) dated January 29, 2025, detaining him at St. Joseph's Health Care Hamilton. He is subject to conditions inter alia at the discretion of the Person in Charge, and with privileges up to and including to live in the community in accommodation approved by the Person in Charge.

3. By letter dated June 18, 2025, the Person in Charge of the Hospital advised the Ontario Review Board that Mr. Love had returned a urine drug screen (UDS) sample which tested presumptively positive for cocaine metabolites, in breach of his Disposition. His passes were held until confirmation arrived on May 29, 2025 which confirmed the presence of cocaine. This led to Mr. Love’s privileges being cancelled that same day and as of June 18, 2025, he had not fully regained his privileges.

4. The Hospital thus notified the Board, pursuant to s. 672.56(2) of the significant increase in the restriction of Mr. Love’s liberties and requested that the Board set this hearing.

5. Prior to the ROL hearing, the Board received an ROL Report authored by Dr. Aaron Wu on July 14, 2025, and entered it as an exhibit.

6. A panel of the Ontario Review Board convened this Restriction of Liberty hearing, pursuant to Section 672.81(2.1) of the Criminal Code of Canada, on July 24, 2025, to consider if the significant increase in the restriction of Mr. Love‘s liberty, which started on May 29, 2025 and continued until June 30, 2025, was necessary and appropriate and the least onerous and least restrictive option available to the Hospital to manage his risk in all the circumstances.

Position of the Parties:

7. At the commencement of the hearing the parties were requested to provide their initial without prejudice positions with respect to the issues before the Board.

8. On behalf of the Hospital, Ms. Barney submitted that the Restriction of Liberty was necessary and appropriate in the circumstances.

9. Counsel for the Attorney General supported the Hospital position.

10. Counsel for Mr. Love agreed with counsel for the Hospital and Attorney General and thus a joint submission was proposed for the Panel to consider.

Conclusion

11. For the reasons that follow, the Panel agreed with the parties and found that the restriction of Mr. Loves’s liberty was necessary and appropriate in the circumstances and represents the least onerous and least restrictive course of action available to the Hospital to manage the increased risk presented by Mr. Love.

Index Offence(s)

12. The index offence occurred on July 23, 2020. The following details are excerpted from the most recent Hospital Report:

David LOVE, is currently on a Hamilton Release Order issued on June 24, 2020 for Mischief under, FTC Probation X4 and Four Probation Orders.

1. Probation Order issued on May 21, 2020 by Justice A. Camara for Mischief under, disobey lawful order X2, Use fire alarm, FTC Probation.

2. Probation Order issued on March 10, 2020 by Justice M. Zivolak for Utter death threat X2 Breach Probation and Disobey Lawful order.

3. Probation Order issued on August 14, 2019 by Justice J. Florucci for assault.

4. Probation Order issued on November 7, 2019 by Justice A. Leitch for mischief under and FTC Probation.

On July 23rd, 2020 at 11:48pm witness, [KM] was parked in her vehicle at the Pizza Pizza parking lot located at 36 York Road, Dundas within the city of Hamilton and witnessed a male assault another male. She provided police with the accused’s description and pointed him out to police, later identified as David LOVE.

Police arrested LOVE (32yr) at 11:49pm for assault and FTC Probation X4, secured him in the cruiser, then located the victim, [RVL] (65yr) nearby. LOVE had no visible injuries, but [RVL]’s face was bleeding. Ambulance attended and [RVL] was transported to hospital.

LOVE was in a state of psychosis, he was agitated and had very little grasp on reality. He was talking in circles and excessively about incidents that did not take place. He continued to ramble on and on, stating he was attacked.

At 12:18am LOVE was informed of his rights to counsel, caution and 524, in which he understood and requested to speak with his lawyer, Jesus Christ.

LOVE was transported to police custody to await a bail hearing.

Police completed statements from [RVL], [KM], and the store clerk at 36 York Rd., [JP]. All three witnesses advised that [RVL] was attacked by LOVE without cause as [RVL] exited the store.

[RVL] sustained a broken jaw and the assault charge was changed to assault cause bodily harm.”.

Diagnosis

13. Mr. Love has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and stimulant use disorder (in remission in a controlled environment).

The ROL Report

14. Mr. Love was subject to a Detention Order dated January 29, 2025, following his last annual hearing which detained him at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton in Hamilton, Ontario. Mr. Love is currently residing in the Hospital as an inpatient on the Waterfall 3 unit.

15. Mr. Love’s Disposition requires to submit, on a random basis, samples of his urine and/or breath for the purpose of analyzing whether he has ingested alcohol, drugs or any other intoxicant, and to abstain absolutely from the non-medical use of alcohol or drugs or any other intoxicant.

16. On May 18, 2025, Mr. Love submitted a urine drug screen (UDS) sample which tested presumptively positive for cocaine metabolites in breach of his Disposition. His passes were held until the results of a confirmation test arrived on May 29, 2025 which confirmed the presence of cocaine. This led to Mr. Love’s privileges being cancelled that same day and as of June 18, 2025 – the day the ROL letter was written to the Board - he had not fully regained his privileges.

Evidence at the Hearing

17. Dr. Wu testified at the hearing on behalf of the Hospital and adopted the contents of the ROL Report.

18. Dr. Wu testified that Mr. Love remains in the Hospital and that as of June 30, 2025, after a brief period of observation to ensure no further substance use, Mr. Love has regained the privileges he had prior to the ROL.

19. When his privileges were initially held on May 18, 2025, Dr. Wu noted that Mr. Love was demonstrating poor insight into the risks of substance use and had difficulty making connections between his relapse into substance use and the risk he posed to others. The doctor saw these signs as a manifestation of psychosis.

20. Dr. Wu opined that the due to Mr. Love’s clinical and static risk factors, as well as his relapse into substance use, the increased restrictions on Mr. Love’s liberty were necessary and appropriate.

21. In response to questions from Mr. Dmitry, Dr. Wu confirmed that since May 18, 2025, Mr. Love has not tested positive for intoxicating substances and that he is currently exercising his privileges regularly.

22. In response to questions from the Panel, Dr. Wu testified that he has regularly met with Mr. Love to engage in psychoeducation and discuss his willingness to engage in substance abuse therapy, however Mr. Love remains ambivalent regarding whether he would stop using. Furthermore, Dr. Wu informed the Panel that there is a waiting list for such programming which has presented a challenge to getting Mr. Love into structured substance abuse programming.

23. Dr. Wu further testified that Mr. Love is externally motivated, in part due to his limited insight into his mental illness and the contributions to same made by substance use, and that consideration would be given to some sort of behavioural contract that incentivizes abstention from substance use with additional privileges.

24. Dr. Wu also testified that Mr. Love denied cocaine use, despite the positive UDS results, but has more recently admitted to ingesting cocaine.

25. Lastly, Dr. Wu testified that in the normal case patients’ privileges are reviewed every four weeks, however Mr. Love’s privileges were reviewed more frequently than that in order to get him back to his privilege norm as quickly as possible.

Analysis and Conclusion

26. The Panel unanimously concluded that the evidence provided by the Hospital supported the restriction of Mr. Love’s liberty as being both necessary and appropriate.

27. Mr. Love has a history of stimulant-induced psychosis which had in past led to a very violent assault. His mental state overall is quite fragile and is subject to fluctuations, so when he uses substances it increases the likelihood of psychosis and thereby his imminent risk of harm to others.

28. Despite being given optimal doses of antipsychotic medication, at his baseline Mr. Love continues to experience grandiose, persecutory and somatic delusions, which cause him to misinterpret the actions of co-patients, leading to conflict. Despite recommendation to switch his medication to clozapine, Mr. Love remains adamantly opposed to taking that medication and the bloodwork required to monitor its levels in the body.

29. Only two years ago while residing on a restricted unit, Mr. Love accessed illicit substances which resulted in acts of violence and aggression. By acting promptly to suspend and then cancel his privileges when his USD returned positive for cocaine metabolites, the Hospital was proactive in ensuring that Mr. Love did not become psychotic and pose an increased risk to Hospital staff and his co-patients.

30. Furthermore, the Hospital took steps to review Mr. Love’s privileges at an accelerated frequency once he began to regain them, in order to mitigate the prejudice to his liberty interests and return Mr. Love to his liberty norm as quickly as possible, without causing undue risk to the safety of Hospital staff, co-patients or the public.

31. In considering the totality of the evidence presented at the hearing, including the information contained in the Hospital Report, the positions of the parties and the testimony of Dr. Wu, the Panel finds that the restriction of Mr. Love’s liberty was both necessary and appropriate, and that the least onerous and least restrictive option was utilized by the Hospital to manage the risks posed by Mr. Love in consideration of the totality of the circumstances.

DATED this 8^th^ day of September 2025, at the City of Toronto, in the Toronto Region.

Mr. D. D’Intino Legal Member

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Office of the Registrar Ontario Review Board