R. v. H.B, 2026 ONSC 2068
COURT FILE NO. CR-24-000165552-0000
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
– and –
H.B.
George Hendry, for the Crown
No one appearing, for the offender
Heard: January 9, 2026
PUBLICATION BAN
By court order made under s. 486.4(1) of the Criminal Code, any information that could identify the complainant, or a witness, shall not be published in any document, or broadcast or transmitted in any way. Every person who fails to comply with this order is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
S.T. Bale J.
Introduction
1Following a jury trial, the offender was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault and one count of extortion. At the request of the Crown, the extortion conviction is stayed, pursuant to R. v. Kienapple, 1974 CanLII 14 (SCC), [1975] 1 S.C.R. 729. The following are my reasons for sentence on the sexual assault charges, Counts 2 and 4.
Offender’s counsel removed from record
2At the commencement of the sentence hearing, defence counsel Lakhwinder Sandhu moved for an order removing himself from the record. He did so on the basis of an email he had received from the offender the previous day. Attached to the email was a psychiatric report. In the email, the offender advised that he was looking for new counsel and instructed Mr. Sandhu to provide the court and Crown counsel with a copy of the report, and to then stop acting upon his behalf. On that basis, I granted the motion.
Offender absconded before sentence hearing
3At the conclusion of trial, at the request of the defence, I ordered a pre-sentence report and scheduled a sentence hearing for January 9, 2026.
4Probation and parole officer, Penelope Nuez (PSR writer), was assigned to prepare the report. She contacted the offender on November 26, 2025, to arrange a meeting. The offender asked whether the meeting could be held by Zoom to accommodate his work schedule. The PSR writer advised that the meeting would have to be in person, and the offender agreed to an in-person interview on December 9, 2025.
5On December 8, 2025, the offender called the PSR writer and said that he had left the country the “previous week” due to a family emergency and asked again that the meeting be held by Zoom which request was denied. He advised that he would be returning to Canada around December 26, 2025. The PSR writer advised the offender to contact his lawyer because a December 26 meeting would allow her insufficient time to complete the report before the January 9, 2026, sentence hearing.
6On December 9, 2025, the PSR writer contacted Canada Border Services Agency and was advised that the offender had crossed the border into the U.S. on October 31, 2025, and that there was no record of him returning to Canada.
7Upon being informed that the offender had left the country, Durham Regional Police Service investigated his abscondment and obtained the following further information.
8On October 31, 2025 (the day following his conviction), the offender crossed into the U.S. at Highgate Springs, in Vermont. On November 2, 2025, he flew from Boston to Zurich, Switzerland. He was then booked on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Boston on November 18, 2025, but failed to show for the flight.
9Based on these facts, Crown counsel argued that it was clear that the offender had absconded and requested that I proceed with the sentence hearing in his absence. I agreed.
10Pursuant to s. 475 of the Criminal Code, where an accused absconds during the course of his trial, he is deemed to have waived his right to be present, and the court may continue and proceed to sentence.
11This was not a simple case of an offender failing to appear for a sentence hearing. The trial concluded at 6:18 p.m. on October 30, 2025, and at some point the following day, the offender left the country. On November 26, 2025, when he asked the PSR report writer if their meeting could be held by Zoom to accommodate his work schedule, he failed to disclose that he had left. And on December 8, 2025, the offender lied to the PSR report writer when he told her that he had left the country “the previous week” when in fact, he left at the end of October.
12In addition, it is clear from the timing of his email to Mr. Sandhu that he was well aware of the date of the sentence hearing. He did not instruct Sandhu to request an adjournment.
13Based upon the evidence given at trial, and the psychiatric report filed at the sentence hearing, I am satisfied that I have sufficient information to sentence the offender in his absence.
Gravity of the offence
14Sexual assault is a grave offence. As stated by Fairburn J.A. in R. v. K (A.J.), 2022 ONCA 487, at para. 74:
All sexual assaults are serious acts of violence. They reflect the wrongful exploitation of the victim whose personal autonomy, sexual integrity and dignity is harmfully impacted while being treated as nothing more than an object. Whether intimate partners or strangers, victims of sexual violence suffer profound emotional and physical harm, and their lives can be forever altered. So too can the lives of their loved ones.
Circumstances of the offence
15The victim came to Canada from India in 2022. She lived with her brother and sister-in-law and found employment in the information technology sector. She was in her mid-thirties and, in her words, “felt the biological clock ticking.” She wished to meet a man, settle down, get married and have children. For this reason, she joined Bumble, a mobile app for online dating and social networking.
16In December 2022, the victim and the offender met on Bumble. They were of the same religion and from the same state in India. They spoke on the phone for more than an hour and a half. They decided to meet in person. It seemed to the victim that their interests were aligned. Their first date was on December 7, 2022.
17On February 11, 2023, at the victim’s home, the offender took two photographs of the victim – one with her bra on and one showing her bare breasts. She said that when she saw that her face was in the photos, she asked him to delete them, but he did not.
18The offender began asking the victim for sex. She told him that she was not ready – sometimes he would be okay with that but sometimes he would get angry. She began to think that he was looking for sex only, and told him that if that was the case, she was not the right girl for him. She wanted to leave vaginal intercourse until marriage.
Count 2
19The offender visited the victim on February 14, 2022. After he arrived, he took her phone, and saw that she had been talking to other people on Bumble. He then became angry and said that she didn’t deserve him and would punish her, and commanded her to remove her clothes. She was shaking and did so because she was scared. He pushed her onto the bed and put his penis in her vagina. She said that it was painful and that she was screaming, asking him to stop. He did.
20After the offender stopped, he told her that he had taken her virginity and that no man on this earth would accept her, because they would know she was not pure. He said that he would tell her parents that she was a slut and had used him. He said that she would not be able to tell anyone what had happened because no one would believe her. He said that if she was not intimate with him, he would show the nude photos to her family. He said if she was nice and obeyed him, he would not say anything to anyone, but if she made him angry “this” would happen – this was how he relieved his anger. She started shaking because if she told her family how it had happened and they didn’t believe her, she would lose them and be alone with nowhere to go. She thought she should stay with him to save her family from shame.
Count 4
21After February 14, 2023, the offender continued to have vaginal intercourse with the victim. There were approximately 30 assaults - three times each time she went to his apartment. She didn’t want the intercourse – she went along with it out of fear. Many of the assaults were brutal and painful.
Circumstances of the offender
22The offender is 31 years old. He was born in India. He has a younger brother who lives in Canada, and a younger sister who does religious work in India, and is a medical doctor. His parents live in India. He came to Canada at age 24 as a post graduate student. At the time of trial, he was working as a software developer for a Montreal-based company. In the psychiatric report filed at the sentence hearing, the psychiatrist says that as a result of the criminal charges against him (which he denied), the offender suffers from PTSD and depression, and that he “should be given a chance to get treatment for his mental illness, and proper rehabilitation for the future.”
Sentencing for s. 271 offences
23Denunciation and deterrence are primary considerations in sentencing for serious sexual assaults.: R. v. R.S., 2023 ONCA 608, at para. 39.
24Absent any highly mitigating factors, the sentencing range for forced penetration of another person is three to five years. However, there will be circumstances where a departure from that range, either above or below, is entirely appropriate: R. v A.J.K, 2022 ONCA 587, at para. 77.
Position of the Crown
25Crown counsel’s position is that a penitentiary term of eight years is warranted.
Victim impact statement
26The victim provided a victim impact statement and a poem. She says that the assaults have left a permanent scar of deep-seated self-disgust. She says that she could feel the hatred in the offender’s actions and felt that sex was a weapon used against her. She says that he met her pain and guilt with mocking laughter and blame. She was made to feel that her truth was worthless, and that seeking justice would be futile, leaving her in a paralyzing fear of failure.
27The victim says that the most painful psychological legacy of the abuse is the crushing weight of self-doubt she has been left with – the agonizing belief that she is unwise and too naïve to live in this world. She has been left with a deep sense of shame.
28She says that the abuse has impacted her physical health and well-being, and has had a devastating impact on her career.
29The victim says that the offender’s threats to expose the intimate photos of her, and to destroy her and her family were terrorizing, leading her to believe that suicide was the only escape. She only refrained because she knew her family would be devastated.
30The shame and fear of the photos being made public were so overwhelming that she deleted all her social media accounts. She remains afraid that the offender will share the photos with her friends or family. Her family relations remain strained. She says that the trauma has left an irreversible mark on her identity, with emotional wounds that will never heal.
Mitigating and aggravating factors
31The offender is a relatively young first-time offender, a mitigating factor which engages the principle of restraint. He is gainfully employed (or at least was at the time of trial) and appears to have family support.
32The aggravating factors include:
the victim and offender were in an intimate partner relationship;
the first assault occurred at the victim’s home which should have been a place of safety;
some of the assaults were brutal, painful and degrading – when the offender was angry, he would punish the victim sexually;
the offender used the threat of exposure of intimate photos to engage her in sex against her will; and
as a new Canadian, the victim was vulnerable – the offender told her that no one would believe her, that the authorities would not help her, and that he knew how the Canadian legal system worked and that he would not be held responsible.
Disposition
33In the result, considering the circumstances of the offence and the offender, the purpose, objectives and principles of sentencing, the mitigating and aggravating factors, including the devastating impact of the offences on the victim, I find the following penitentiary terms to be just and appropriate:
On Count 4, 7 years; and
On Count 2, 4 years, concurrent to the sentence on Count 4.
34There will also be a DNA order, a weapons prohibition order for life, a SOIRA order for 20 years and an order prohibiting the offender from communicating with the victim, while serving the custodial part of his sentence.
April 8, 2026
“S.T. Bale J.”
R. v. H.B, 2026 ONSC 2068
COURT FILE NO. CR-24-000165552-0000
DATE: 20260408
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
– and –
H.B.
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
S.T. BALE J.
April 8, 2026