Ontario Review Board
Re: Brian Ndopu
ORB File No: 8759
Hearing held on: Monday, February 9, 2026
Place of Hearing: Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre
Pursuant to: Section 672.81(2.1) of the Criminal Code
Before: Alternate Chairperson: Ms. M. Labrosse Members: Dr. S. Lessard Dr. R. Cormier Mr. D. Sandor Ms. B. Naegele
Parties Appearing: Accused: Brian Ndopu Counsel: Ms. M. Lord Person in charge of hospital: Representative: Dr. J. Gojer Attorney-General of Ontario: Counsel: Ms. E. Davies
REASONS FOR DECISION
(Dated March 16, 2026)
Introduction:
On April 2, 2025, the accused, Brian Ndopu, was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (“NCR”) on a charge of mischief and indecent act, contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada.
Mr. Ndopu is currently subject to a disposition of the Ontario Review Board (“ORB” or the “Board”) dated June 17, 2025, which detains him at the Secure Forensic Unit of the hospital with privileges up to and including community living in approved accommodation.
By letter dated December 9, 2025, the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre advised the ORB that Mr. Ndopu had been readmitted to hospital on December 2, 2025, thereby constituting a significant increase in the restriction of his liberty.
On February 9, 2026, the ORB convened a hearing to conduct a restriction of liberty (“ROL”) hearing pursuant to s. 672.81(2.1) of the Criminal Code. Mr. Ndopu attended his hearing and was represented by his counsel, Ms. Melanie Lord. A hospital report dated December 13, 2025, was entered into evidence as Exhibit 1.
The sole issue for this hearing is to review the restriction of liberty and determine whether the decision to readmit Mr. Ndopu to hospital was, and remains, reasonable and warranted and represents the least onerous and least restrictive intervention available to the hospital to manage the risk.
At the outset, the parties provided their preliminary without prejudice positions for this hearing. The hospital indicated that the decision to significantly increase the restriction of Mr. Ndopu’s liberty was reasonable and warranted in the circumstances and continues to be so. Counsel for the Attorney General, Ms. Davies, indicated her support of the hospital recommendation, while counsel for Mr. Ndopu, Ms. Lord, advised that though she was not taking issue with the decision to admit Mr. Ndopu to hospital, she had questions regarding the appropriateness of the ongoing restriction. At the time of closing submissions, the parties presented a joint position to the Board that the ROL was and continues to be reasonable and warranted.
For the Reasons set out below, the Board finds that the hospital’s decision to significantly increase the restriction of Mr. Ndopu’s liberty by admitting him to hospital on December 2, 2025 was reasonable and warranted in the circumstances and represented the least onerous and least restrictive course of action available to the hospital to deal with the decompensation of Mr. Ndopu’s illness and the manifestation of aggression and other inappropriate behaviours caused by his decompensation. The Board further finds that the restriction remains least onerous and least restrictive in the circumstances and we are satisfied that the hospital is making all reasonable efforts to expedite Mr. Ndopu’s discharge back to the community.
As the only issue for this hearing is the ROL, the details of the index offences as well as Mr. Ndopu’s background history, which are set out in the Reasons for Disposition dated August 7, 2025, shall not be repeated in these Reasons for Decision.
Evidence at the Hearing
The hospital’s evidence was presented through its report as well as through the oral testimony of Dr. Julian Gojer, Mr. Ndopu’s attending psychiatrist. This evidence is summarized below.
Dr. Gojer described Mr. Ndopu’s stay in hospital to date as being “up and down.” Mr. Ndopu is not yet back to his baseline mental status, and the hospital is working on optimizing medication. Mr. Ndopu’s substitute decision-maker, his mother, agreed to switch Mr. Ndopu’s medication from Invega to Abilify, upon the recommendation of Dr. Gojer. It quickly became obvious that this was not adequately addressing Mr. Ndopu’s symptoms as he was becoming more disruptive on the unit, including latching on to a developmentally delayed patient and found to be masturbating excessively in his room.
A decision was made, with Mr. Ndopu’s mother’s consent, to switch him back to Invega and add an oral dose to supplement the long-acting injectable dose of 150 mg that Mr. Ndopu had been receiving prior to his admission to hospital. Dr. Gojer also administered a dose of Accuphase, a short acting antipsychotic, which had a sedating effect on Mr. Ndopu and helped to settle him while his medication was being switched back to Invega.
In the last week, Mr. Ndopu has been more settled but is not yet back to his baseline, as assessed recently by Dr. Gojer who met with him last night.
Mr. Ndopu is on the Forensic Rehabilitation Unit (“FRU”) of the hospital, such that he can now gradually start accessing escorted passes off the unit. Dr. Gojer also arranged for Mr. Ndopu to meet with his mother in the Winter Garden prior to the hearing and that went well.
With respect to longer term plans, Dr. Gojer advised that Mr. Ndopu’s care will be transferred to Dr. Alabi, for administrative reasons. Dr. Gojer will be recommending an increase of the LAI dose to 200 mg or an increase in the frequency of the injection, as he transfers Mr. Ndopu’s care to Dr. Alabi.
Dr. Gojer confirmed that Mr. Ndopu’s mother remains very cooperative with the treatment team. Mr. Ndopu’s family is extremely close and though Dr. Gojer believes that it would be good for him to return home, it might also be helpful for him to have a short stint in one of the hospital’s transitional homes in order to help consolidate gains. As Mr. Ndopu further stabilizes, this possibility will be further considered. A meeting should take place in a few weeks to discuss next steps.
Depending on Mr. Ndopu’s mental state, there will be a further assessment to explore the feasibility of having Mr. Ndopu return to the family home. In Dr. Gojer’s opinion, it would be premature to make that decision today.
It remains an issue that Mr. Ndopu’s family home is far from the hospital and requires Mr. Ndopu to take three buses to get there, with a travel time of 1.5 hours each way.
In response to questions posed to him by counsel for the Attorney General, Ms. Davies, Dr. Gojer confirmed that Mr. Ndopu had been refusing to attend the hospital to provide urine screens for several weeks prior to his readmission to hospital. Testing has resumed since his admission, and test results have all been negative.
Dr. Gojer believes that there are ongoing insight issues that need to be addressed to help prepare Mr. Ndopu for discharge. There are concerns with him hiding his drug use from his mother. A transitional home and the associated programming could be helpful to better prepare Mr. Ndopu for his return to the family home.
In response to questions posed to him by counsel for Mr. Ndopu, Ms. Lord, Dr. Gojer testified as follows:
a) Further psychoeducation is needed. The hospital is waiting for Mr. Ndopu to be back at his baseline mental health before re-engaging him with an addictions counsellor and having him participate in hospital groups.
b) Mr. Ndopu’s mother confirmed that Mr. Ndopu is receiving his anti-psychotic medication from a pharmacy on Bank Street, as this was done to the alleviate the onerous travel to and from the hospital. Dr. Gojer believes that it would be more difficult to set up urine drug screens off site and that having Mr. Ndopu attend at the hospital to provide his urine screens gives the treatment team a chance to see him in between appointments.
c) Dr. Gojer confirmed that Mr. Ndopu was adherent to his medication prior to his decompensation, but that the dose that he was taking was not adequately treating his symptoms. Dr. Gojer believes that cannabis use also contributed to the decompensation.
d) Regarding the aggressive incident between Mr. Ndopu and his mother, Dr. Gojer believes that this was due to his decompensation. Mr. Ndopu and his mother generally have a good relationship though it would be helpful to engage the family in further psychoeducation both with respect to Mr. Ndopu’s illness and cannabis use.
e) Prior to the admission, Mr. Ndopu was not working. The treatment team would like to get him involved in some kind of work pattern and that this may start with the Bakeology Program of the hospital.
- In response to questions posed to him by members of the Board hearing panel, Dr. Gojer testified as follows:
a) The wait list for Grove and Lebreton are both at about four to five months. In the meantime, the hospital would likely discharge Mr. Ndopu back to his home rather than have him wait for a spot in hospital.
b) Dr. Gojer confirmed that Mr. Ndopu lacks insight into the impact of cannabis on his major mental illness.
c) The treatment team is delicately approaching the issues in the family home, including concerns expressed by the hospital social worker regarding the denial that cannabis was being used in the home. Dr. Gojer believes that Dr. Alabi might be better able to connect with the family and provide psychoeducational support; to target the trust issues that immigrant families can face in relation to this type of issue.
d) Dr. Gojer confirmed that he would likely change Mr. Ndopu’s diagnosis from schizophrenia to schizoaffective disorder given the observations by the treatment team of Mr. Ndopu since being readmitted to hospital, including evidence of some manic behaviour. In this case a mood stabilizer might be recommended, however Dr. Gojer will leave this to Dr. Alabi to determine.
Mr. Ndopu’s mother asked the panel for details regarding the transitional residences that are being considered for Mr. Ndopu including house rules and the number of patients per room. Ms. Ndopu was encouraged to discuss this with the members of the treatment team. Dr. Gojer offered to facilitate a visit to the prospective residences for Mr. Ndopu’s mother.
No other evidence was presented.
Closing Submissions of the Parties
- At the conclusion of the hearing the Board was presented with a joint submission of all parties that the decision to admit Mr. Ndopu to hospital constituted a significant increase in the restriction of his liberty which was and remains reasonable and warranted and represents the least onerous and least restrictive decision available to the hospital in the circumstances.
Analysis and Conclusion
Having considered all of the evidence tendered at the hearing and the joint submission of the parties, the Board finds that the hospital’s decision to admit Mr. Ndopu on December 2, 2026 amounts to a significant increase in the restriction of his liberty, that was reasonable and warranted and represented the least onerous and least restrictive course of action available to the hospital at that time.
Regarding the law applicable to restriction of liberty hearings, the analytical framework established by Campbell (Re), 2018 ONCA 140, requires the Board to consider the liberty norm and the liberty status of an accused on a restriction. The liberty norm and liberty status for each restriction must be examined to determine the significance of the increase (if any) on the restriction of an accused’s liberty caused by the restriction. In determining the liberty norm of an accused at the outset of each period of restriction, the Board must “take a contextual approach – one that considers the individual’s pattern of liberty in the recent past.” ((Re) Campbell, para. 66). The liberty she/he was actually experiencing (rather than what she/he was entitled to) at the time of the increase is what the Board is to consider, and that “liberty must be of sufficient duration to have become, objectively speaking, the NCR accused’s norm” ((Re) Campbell, para 65).
The necessity of the restriction arose from Mr. Ndopu’s decompensation and ensuing aggressive and inappropriate behaviour. The decompensation appears to have been triggered by sub-optimal medication and cannabis use, which is contrary to the terms of Mr. Ndopu’s disposition. Given the aggressive behaviour in the family home, there was no other option than to admit Mr. Ndopu to stabilize him and treat his symptoms. There was, accordingly, a significant restriction of his liberties that was undertaken out of necessity, having regard to both the hospital’s obligation to ensure the safety of the public (as the primary objective) and its duty to ensure that Mr. Ndopu’s mental health and other needs are being met.
The ongoing restriction of Mr. Ndopu’s liberty also remains reasonable and warranted as he is only now nearing his baseline mental condition after attempts to change his medication and the decision to return to the original medication, but at a higher dose. Mr. Ndopu is on the FRU and will therefore be able to start accessing privileges as soon as he is deemed ready. The plan, to be confirmed, appears to be to discharge Mr. Ndopu back to the family home, once he is stable and re-engaged in programming, and to have him placed on the waitlists for the hospital transitional homes, where he can consolidate his gains and be better prepared for community living.
The Board is hopeful that Mr. Ndopu will continue the forward progress he has made in the past few weeks, and we wish him the best.
DATED this 16th day of March 2026, at the City of Toronto, in the Toronto Region.
Ms. M. Labrosse Alternate Chairperson
__________________
Office of the Registrar Ontario Review Board