Accused in HSC sex assaults found not criminally responsible in 2017 for attacking dad

A Winnipeg man charged in a string of sexual assaults at Health Sciences Centre has a history of mental illness, court records show.

Police arrested the 28-year-old man on July 3, one day after four women and one teenage girl reported they had been sexually assaulted either in the hospital or near it.

The accused, who appeared on a mental health court docket Thursday, remains in custody. His next court date is Aug. 7.

Winnipeg police are not releasing the accused’s name at this point to protect the integrity of their investigation, as detectives are still probing the incidents, said police spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon.

Court records show the accused has schizophrenia and in 2017 was found not criminally responsible for a violent attack on his father while in the grip of a psychotic episode.

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, the then-20-year-old accused had not been sleeping for days and was delusional when he asked his father if he was rapper Tupac Shakur or Eminem. When the man tried to leave the apartment, the accused attacked him with a crowbar. As the man called 911 for help, the accused struck him in the head with the crowbar, fracturing his skull.

The accused shattered a window with the crowbar, cut his hand open, and ran away. He was arrested later that day after he went to Health Sciences Centre to seek medical treatment.

To find an offender not criminally responsible for their actions, a judge must be satisfied they are suffering from a mental illness and that they did not know what they were doing was wrong or did not appreciate the nature and quality of their actions.

A forensic report provided to court found the accused was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the attack and “was deprived of the capacity to know his actions were wrong.”

Once an offender is found not criminally responsible for their crimes, their cases are referred to the Mental Health Review Board, an independent tribunal that oversees their subsequent medical treatment and decides whether they should be held in a locked medical facility and when they can be released.

A review board staff person contacted Friday could not confirm whether the accused remained under the board’s supervision.

The HSC case raised alarm bells among hospital staff who said they weren’t notified an attacker was targeting women on the hospital campus while he was still at large.

“We weren’t made aware to be extra vigilant, that there was someone that had gone out and made attacks around the area. They didn’t let us know that nobody had been arrested or found, and that they were still on the loose,” a nurse told the Free Press at the time under condition of anonymity.

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Winnipeg Police Service said it investigated four random sexual assaults within about an hour, beginning at 7 p.m., when a teenage girl was confronted by a man and assaulted in the area of Elgin Avenue and Sherbrook Street, and ending at 7:45 p.m., when an HSC staff member was assaulted walking near the hospital on Emily Street near McDermot Avenue.

Another staff member was assaulted while walking in the hospital tunnels. A fifth woman reported being sexually assaulted that same day on the 600 block of Notre Dame Avenue.

Police have charged the accused with five counts of sexual assault, one count of sexual interference, three counts of assault and one count of carrying a concealed weapon.

— With files from Erik Pindera

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.