As his victim’s father wept “my son is gone,” the teenaged hitman who killed an innocent tow truck driver in Scarborough got credit for the harsh two years he’s already spent in youth custody due to “humiliating” strip searches and the lack of fresh air for six months while the outdoor yard was closed for repairs.
The most famous student at McGill’s law school this year is a convicted murderer and rapist who was paroled in part for being Indigenous. And there is no chalking this up to a mistake: McGill professors helped with his application, and the university was “fully aware” of his past, according to his lawyer.
On October 9, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a lengthy judgment in R. v. Cope, grappling with provisions in Canada’s Criminal Code that govern the sentencing of Aboriginal offenders, and how sentences should be imposed when the crime victim is Aboriginal.
The tragic facts before the Court arose in Halifax in 2021, when Harry Cope brutally attacked Brittany Sack, his common law partner. A video recording documented a vicious, prolonged beating, during which Harry repeatedly punched and kicked Brittany. Found lying on the sidewalk, Brittany had a broken bone in her face, a possible break in her breastbone, pooling of blood under the skin of her breastbone and significant swelling of her eye.
In the United States, the law is the same for everyone, regardless of race — at least theoretically. But in Canada, there is a parallel justice system for the favored race: indigenous people.
Since 1999, judges have been asked to give more lenient sentences to indigenous people out of ideological concern for “Indigenous overincarceration.” In addition, indigenous people are offered “sentencing circles” specific to “Aboriginal offenders.” These “sentencing circles” consist of members of the indigenous community, including “Elders”; they make recommendations to a judge about what sentence a person should receive.
The Supreme Court of Canada has tried to resolve competing judicial imperatives — addressing Indigenous overincarceration and high rates of violence against Indigenous women — in cases when a male offender and a female victim are both Indigenous.
The complexity and importance of this tension was highlighted by 22 groups being granted intervenor status to offer input in the case, including the attorneys general of three provinces, First Nations and Indigenous organizations, law groups, and numerous human rights, civil liberties and constitutional advocacy organizations.
On a rural road near Brantford, Ontario, Darris Wilson slammed his Dodge Ram pickup truck into a small Mitsubishi subcompact car, killing 12-year-old Sierra Beverly and severely injuring her mother, Naomi.
Wilson was originally charged with impaired operation causing death and bodily harm but was eventually convicted of dangerous driving causing death and bodily harm, an offence carrying a sentence of up to 14 years. Yet last month, Justice Gethin Edward, an indigenous judge and member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, sentenced Wilson to two years of house arrest. The Crown had requested at least four years in prison.
A Winnipeg judge has granted a conditional discharge to an Iranian-born chemist so he can avoid deportation for surreptitiously and repeatedly filming the backsides of two women at the lab where they all worked.
Seyed Reza Mir Heidari, who pleaded guilty in Manitoba provincial court to two counts of voyeurism, is living in Canada on a work permit that was recently extended until April 2027. He has applied for permanent residency, but that application is on hold because of the voyeurism charges.
A man who threw a plastic bottle and swore at the police while taking part in an anti-immigration protest in Portsmouth has been sent to prison for two years.
Del Somerville was given a jail sentence on Thursday after pleading guilty to violent disorder following unrest, involving around 200 people, at Eastney Marina on 6 September. Yes, Somerville threw a plastic bottle at police officers, which he shouldn’t have done. But it’s notable just how quickly and severely the courts moved to punish him. It was clear the legal establishment was looking to make an example of him. At Portsmouth Crown Court, the judge explicitly stated that the severe sentence was intended to ‘act as a deterrent’ to others.
True to their word, Hampshire Police have wasted no time in cracking down on ‘masked’ protesters. In Portsmouth last weekend, a self-proclaimed ‘gender-fluid Muslim convert’ wearing a burqa was detained, arrested and charged for allegedly refusing to reveal his (or her, or their) identity at an anti-immigration rally. The individual is due to appear at the Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court today.
She was pregnant as well. Disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/1WeWyYmC7P
— Joo (@JoosyJew) September 13, 2026
h/t Patti Jo
Just a few weeks ago, a Halifax man named Shondre Jarvis was sentenced to three years’ jail for nearly killing a fellow African Nova Scotian. It happened at a house party in 2024, where adults and children alike had gathered to continue the celebration of their historically Black neighbourhood’s annual festival.
This week, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided to drop the charge against 20-year-old Cody Harper of assaulting an emergency worker.
🚨NEW: Following a review by the CPS, Cody Harper has had the charge of assaulting a police officer dropped
"It is understood that the footage of his arrest undermined the suggestion he knew he was assaulting a police officer." pic.twitter.com/yC0kB1tkOm
— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) July 22, 2026
The mother of Henry Nowak’s killer has been jailed for three years after removing her son’s murder weapon from the scene.
Vickrum Digwa stabbed the university student with a large knife in the street in Southampton then handed the 8in blade to Kiran Kaur, 53, his mother.
The killing prompted accusations of two-tier policing after it emerged that officers had believed Digwa’s claims that he had been the victim of racist abuse.
An Algerian who tried to rape a woman near Buckingham Palace was released by police despite being caught red-handed, a judge said.
Algerian-born Ramzi Barkat, 54, followed the lone woman out of St James’s Park, central London, in the early hours of Sept 7, 2024, Southwark Crown Court heard.
After his attempts to flirt with her were rejected, he tackled her to the ground, grabbed her wrists and “straddled” her, Judge Justin Cole said.
A tribunal has ruled that a Toronto lawyer originally charged with intimate partner violence and making death threats can continue to practise.
The Law Society of Ontario wanted Jagdeep Sikh Virk, 47, placed on a temporary suspension – or at least, subject to practice restrictions – while he faced serious criminal charges. But in a recent decision, a panel of the Law Society Tribunal dismissed the motion, finding no risk to the public or to the public interest in the administration of justice.
