MANDEL: Ex-Hedley singer Jacob Hoggard sentenced to five years for sex assault

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Former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard has been sentenced to five years in prison for the violent, degrading rape of an Ottawa college student in 2016.

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Looking stoic, Hoggard hugged and kissed his wife before he was led away — but perhaps not for long. Now a Vancouver carpenter, Hoggard, 38, is scheduled to be next door at the Ontario Court of Appeal this afternoon as he seeks bail pending his appeal.

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Ontario Superior Court Justice Gillian Roberts said she would have accepted the Crown’s sentencing submission of six to seven years but for the $2.8-million lawsuit he now faces from the victim. Paying damages will likely hang over his head for the rest of his life, she said.

A jury convicted Hoggard in June of sexual assault causing bodily harm in his violent attack on the Ottawa woman he’d met on Tinder and arranged to meet in a downtown Toronto hotel. She testified that over several hours, the charming man she’d flirted with online turned into a monster who forced anal and vaginal intercourse, slapped her, spit on her and choked her to the point she thought he would kill her.

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Hoggard was acquitted on two charges relating to a teenage fan, including sexual assault causing bodily harm. He still faces a charge related to a third complainant in Kirkland Lake.

The defence had asked the judge to dismiss much of the victim’s testimony as being inconsistent when she considered her sentence. Roberts bluntly rejected that advice. “I believe (her),” the judge said.

She found there are “many sides” to Hoggard — charismatic rock star, manipulative rapist, loyal friend and family man. She rejected the conclusion of Dr. Hy Bloom, a forensic psychiatrist retained by the defence, who said Hoggard doesn’t suffer from paraphilia and now that he’s no longer a rock star, he poses a low risk to reoffend.

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Roberts said the psychiatrist didn’t have enough information to come to that definitive conclusion. “There is no explanation for the offence,” she noted. “We must be concerned about future risk.”

His planning and deliberation included manipulation of the victim with online flirtation and sending her a train ticket to meet her at a Toronto hotel room. She accepted that once he had her in his room, Hoggard violently raped her repeatedly, spit in her mouth, slapped her, called her degrading names and choked her.

Hoggard’s sexual satisfaction came at “staggering and utterly unacceptable cost” of forever changing his victim’s life, the judge said.

She acknowledged the extremely traumatizing time the woman had seeking justice — the trial was delayed due to the pandemic and then she says she was revictimized on the witness stand when she was confronted with a call secretly recorded by her rapist and then berated with a video interview that wasn’t her.

Roberts said it was “profoundly unfair” but not an aggravating factor on sentencing.

The judge also ordered a DNA sample, a 10-year weapons ban and 20 years on the sex offender registry.

“I wish you the best of luck,” she concluded.

A bail hearing is scheduled for this afternoon.

mmandel@postmedia.com