Shane David Christopher Hobson

The Ontario Review Board held a mandatory annual review hearing for an accused found not criminally responsible for arson.

The accused sought a conditional discharge or, alternatively, expanded travel privileges to visit family locally, attend a church trip in the US, and visit Ghana for six weeks.

The Hospital and Crown opposed a conditional discharge, arguing the accused's schizoaffective disorder causes rapid decompensation requiring hospital supervision.

The Board found the accused remains a significant threat to public safety and maintained the detention order.

However, the Board granted the requested travel privileges subject to strict safeguards, including the requirement that an approved person accompany her during travel.

This decision addresses an application by Robert Freedland seeking a stay of a section 117.05 firearms disposition proceeding on grounds of abuse of process, alleging the Crown reneged on an agreement made during his preliminary hearing and that the hearing is motivated by malice following his overturned conviction.

The court found no abuse of process, holding that the original agreement not to pursue firearms charges applied only to the criminal trial and did not immunize the applicant from the regulatory firearms disposition process.

The court also granted an order for an out-of-town Crown Attorney to conduct the section 117.05 hearing due to perceived fairness concerns but denied the request to summon former jurors to investigate alleged obstruction of justice, finding no evidentiary basis for such an order.

Tenzin Norbu was charged with first-degree murder.

The trial proceeded without a jury, with the accused admitting to causing the victim's death by pouring lighter fluid and igniting it.

The sole issue was whether Norbu was Not Criminally Responsible (NCR) on account of mental disorder.

Expert psychiatric evidence established that Norbu suffered from schizophrenia and was experiencing active psychosis at the time of the offence, rendering him incapable of knowing his actions were morally wrong.

The court found Norbu NCR and remanded him to the Ontario Review Board for disposition.

The accused pleaded guilty to second degree murder for stabbing his intimate partner to death.

The Crown sought a parole ineligibility period of 16 to 17 years, while the accused sought the minimum 10 years.

The court considered the brutal nature of the killing, the breach of trust, and the aggravating factor of intimate partner violence, balanced against the mitigating factors of a guilty plea, lack of prior record, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 15 years.

In a first-degree murder trial involving a domestic homicide, the Crown sought to introduce various out-of-court statements and text messages.

The court ruled on the admissibility of this evidence, applying the Barton framework for prior sexual conduct and the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The court admitted text messages arranging a sexual encounter as evidence of the accused's motive, but excluded them as evidence of the deceased's state of mind.

The court also admitted several of the accused's prior statements as admissions, while excluding certain hearsay statements made by the deceased to her estranged husband for lack of threshold reliability.

The accused pleaded guilty to possessing prohibited firearms and ammunition after police discovered the weapons during a search warrant execution related to their tobacco business.

The accused had purchased the firearms for protection after receiving serious threats.

The Crown proceeded summarily and sought a one-year custodial sentence, while the defence sought a suspended sentence or intermittent custody based on the accused's exemplary backgrounds and extensive community service.

The court imposed a 60-day intermittent sentence for each accused, followed by 18 months of probation requiring 240 hours of community service, balancing the need for denunciation with the offenders' significant moral credit for past good deeds.