Jacob Hoggard has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for sexual assault causing bodily harm

Trigger warning: graphic content

Hedley frontman, and now convicted sex offender, Jacob Hoggard was sentenced today to five years in prison for sexual assault causing bodily harm. 

Hoggard was convicted of the crime in May after a four-week trial, where the jury heard graphic details of Hoggard’s “manipulative and degrading” rape of an Ottawa woman who cannot be named due to a publication ban.

In reading out the sentence, Judge Gillian Roberts said in a Toronto courthouse, "I believe (the victim). I accept her evidence in its entirety."

Saying that the assault, which the survivour endured for hours, and whereby Hoggard did not use a condom, caused a “staggering and unacceptable” cost to the victim, Judge Roberts slammed Hoggard’s legal defense for playing a clip to the victim that wasn’t her was “profoundly unfair,” and then added that their attempt during the trial to play to the victim a secretly-recorded phone call without prior disclosure was “flat out cruel.”

Hoggard provided 52 letters of support from friends and family before sentencing which detail how his assault of the Ottawa woman does not reflect the character they know, but it is worth noting that not a single member of Hedley provided a letter.

After his sentence was read out, he was permitted to say goodbye to his wife, who has been present throughout the entire legal process. “See you soon,” he said to her before being led away in handcuffs. Hoggard is still seeking bail pending appeal, which could see him released from prison until an appeal hearing is set. It could take several months or years for an appeal decision.

The sentence also includes a DNA order (which allows law enforcement to take samples of his saliva and bodily fluids to be stored in a databank), 20 years on the sex offender registry, 10 year weapons ban, and a no contact with the victim order. He also faces yet another trial on a charge of sexual assault causing bodily harm to a different woman, stemming from the Kirkland Lake festival in 2016.