Man pleads guilty to five sex assaults at, near HSC

A Winnipeg man previously found not criminally responsible for a violent assault on his father has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting four women and a teen girl in and around the Health Sciences Centre last year.

Donovan Mohammed, 29, admitted responsibility for the attacks, on Friday in Winnipeg court. He remains in custody and will be sentenced at a later date following the completion of a court-ordered pre-sentence report.

Mohammed admitted to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and four women — all strangers to him — within the span of an hour on July 2, 2025.

Court heard three of Mohammed’s victims were nurses and three of the assaults were captured on security video.

Details of the assaults were laid out in an agreed statement of facts read out in court.

Court heard a 14-year-old girl was walking in the area of Elgin Avenue and Sherbrook Street around 6:50 p.m. when Mohammed walked up behind her and attempted to pull her pants down. Mohammed pushed the girl to the ground, struck her in the face, called her a “bitch” and tried to steal her backpack.

The girl discharged a can of pepper spray at Mohammed and he ran away.

Around 7:15, Mohammed approached a 26-year-old woman walking on Spence Street and “asked for a moment of her time,” Crown attorney Andrea Lett told provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

The woman ignored Mohammed and was continuing to walk away when he grabbed her between the legs, causing her to fall to the ground. Mohammed slapped the woman in the face. The woman screamed and Mohammed ran away.

A short time later, a nurse who had just finished her shift was walking alone to her bus stop on William Avenue near Furby Street when Mohammed came up behind her and slapped her buttocks “very hard” and ran away.

At 7:42 p.m., Mohammed approached a 24-year-old nurse as she walked in a tunnel connecting the hospital to a parkade. Mohammed grabbed the woman’s waist and put his hand between her legs. The woman screamed and Mohammed ran away.

Just three minutes later, Mohammed approached a pregnant nurse as she walked in the area of Emily Street and McDermot Avenue and asked her the time. Mohammed slapped the woman on the buttocks, knocking her to her knees, then ran away.

Police arrested Mohammed a day later in possession of a knife and a hospital visitor slip.

Mohammed told court he had no clear memory of the assaults. When arrested, he told police he had not been taking his medication.

“It’s comforting to know that this individual is probably not going to be on the street for a bit.”

Court records show Mohammed has a history of mental illness and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 2017, he 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 at that time, Mohammed 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, Mohammed attacked him with a crowbar. As the man called 911 for help, Mohammed struck him in the head with the crowbar, fracturing his skull.

Mohammed 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.

Court heard the Crown will be recommending a “significant” sentence of up to eight years in prison for the sexual assaults.

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.

Those assaults and other violent incidents at HSC prompted Manitoba Nurses Union members the following month to vote 94 per cent in favour of “grey listing” the hospital; the designation means union members at the hospital formally urge other nurses not to accept work there until safety demands made to the employer are met.

MNU president Darlene Jackson said safety initiatives introduced since then are helping reduce the number of violent incidents at the hospital.

Jackson said she was pleased to hear Mohammed had pleaded guilty to the assaults.

“It’s comforting to know that this individual is probably not going to be on the street for a bit,” she said.

— With files from Nicole Buffie

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca