Latest news with #King'sBench
CTV News
11-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Saskatoon judge dismisses $25M lawsuit against Christian school, church
A Saskatoon Court of King's Bench judge has dismissed a $25-million class action lawsuit against Mile Two Church and its associated private Christian school. Justice Rochelle Wempe dismissed the civil suit in a written decision on June 3. When the lawsuit was launched in August 2022, it named 22 defendants and alleged systemic abuse of students at the church and school — formerly known as Legacy Christian Academy. Wempe ruled there was 'abuse of process.' In her decision, she said the plaintiffs failed to 'immediately' disclose settlement agreements with three defendants. According to Wempe, plaintiffs settled with Stephanie Case in November of 2023, and Fran Thevenot and Tracy Johnson in February of 2024. Claims against four other named defendants were also dropped. Wempe wrote defendants were informed about the settlement agreements five months after Case signed and two months after Thevenot and Johnson signed. She noted they were only made aware of the settlements because Mile Two's lawyers made 'repeated requests for information from plaintiffs.' She said the settlement agreements 'significantly' altered the litigation landscape. Wempe said the terms of agreement stated the settling defendants would provide testimony and affidavits and would not take any formal 'adversarial position against the plaintiffs.' 'The settlement agreements had the effect of them switching sides and cooperating with the plaintiffs,' Wempe wrote. The plaintiffs, represented by Scharfstein Law, argued Mile Two and the other defendants were not hurt by the failure to disclose the settlements. Wempe says no prejudice is required for the immediate disclosure rule to come into effect. The plaintiffs also argued that dismissing the lawsuit would be 'unfair and unjust' because there is no case law indicating that the immediate disclosure rule applies in Saskatchewan. 'While I have some sympathy for this argument, I note that there is significant case law from three provinces dating back to 2009 which has clearly set out the immediate disclosure rule in civil proceedings,' Wempe wrote. The plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on Monday. The appeal argues Wempe erred in determining that the immediate disclosure rule for settlement agreements applies in Saskatchewan. The appeal also argues Wempe erred in determining that the legal test for abuse of process could be met without finding prejudice. 'Our clients were extremely disappointed in this decision, and we're going to push forward with the claim,' lawyer Grant Scharfstein told CTV News. Scharfstein said he's hoping the appeal will be heard by fall. CTV News reached out to the lawyers representing Mile Two Church Inc., but did not get a response by publishing time.
Winnipeg Free Press
06-06-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Drunk driver ‘detonated bomb inside family'
The daughter of a 28-year-old mother of four killed by a drunk driver cried as she told a Winnipeg court how her family was 'destroyed' by the July 2021 highway collision. 'There is a part of me that wants to scream at you, freak out, tell you how much I hate you, but even that doesn't feel strong enough,' the now 17-year-old told Chantelle Deprez. 'You didn't just steal a life — you detonated a bomb inside a family and walked away alive.' Deprez, 37, previously pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death for the crash that claimed the life of Angelina Wiens. She was sentenced Monday to three years in prison. Since Wiens' death, her four children have been separated — her young son now lives with his father, while his three sisters live with an aunt and her family. 'I love my cousins and my auntie and uncle, but it is not the same without my mom,' Wiens' youngest, now 11-year-old daughter wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court. 'It's not fair, she was very young,' the girl said. 'She could have had a great future and a longer life if you weren't drinking.' Support letters from family friends and her employer described Deprez as a good person, great mother and valued employee. Five of seven support letters, as well as a psychiatrist report, described the crash as an 'accident.' King's Bench Justice Ken Champagne said there was nothing accidental about someone getting behind the wheel after drinking. 'It is not an accident — it is a serious crime… an all-too prevalent crime that causes more deaths in Canada than any other crime,' often committed by otherwise law-abiding people with no criminal records, Champagne said. Champagne rejected a recommendation from defence lawyer Jay Prober that Deprez be sentenced to two years house arrest, ruling a 'significant' sentence was necessary to satisfy the sentencing principles of deterrence and denunciation 'and more importantly send a message to the community at large that this kind of criminal conduct is unacceptable.' Court heard Deprez was behind the wheel of a 1998 Ford Explorer, heading north on Highway 6 in the RM of St Laurent at about 11:30 p.m., when she veered into the southbound lane and into the path of Wiens' 1994 Chevrolet pickup truck. Wiens 'was able to try an evasive manoeuvre; she braked, she tried to go on to the shoulder, but it just wasn't enough, the accused was too far over,' Crown attorney Thomas Boulton told court. Deprez did not try to apply the brakes or veer out of the way and collided with the front right side of Wiens' truck, sending both vehicles spinning. Emergency responders had to extract Wiens from her vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene. She wasn't wearing a seat belt. Deprez was taken by air ambulance to Health Sciences Centre with a broken leg and hip and collapsed lung. She spent 12 days in hospital and was in a wheelchair for four months. According to a pre-sentence report, Deprez told a probation officer that prior to the collision she had been watching movies at a friend's house and had one glass of wine before leaving to drive home to Winnipeg. But according to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Deprez told an air ambulance paramedic she had four glasses of wine prior to the collision. Medical records later obtained by police showed Deprez would have had an estimated blood-alcohol level of .246 at the time of the collision, more than triple the legal limit for driving. Deprez told a probation officer she continued to drink following her arrest, which court heard was in violation of a bail condition set by Champagne prohibiting her from consuming alcohol. Prober argued Deprez did not remember the bail condition and was not consciously flouting Champagne's order, which he accepted. Following the collision, Deprez was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. A psychiatric report described her as an 'emotional invalid.' Deprez hasn't driven since the collision 'and may never drive again,' Prober said, adding she was 'genuinely remorseful' and that she pleaded guilty in the face of a problematic Crown case. None of the paramedics who treated Deprez said they saw any signs she was impaired, he said. A crash reconstruction report, meanwhile, made reference to police finding open containers of alcohol in Wiens' truck and detecting the smell of marijuana. Wiens was a suspended driver at the time. Deprez apologized to Wiens' family, saying she was 'extremely sorry' for her decision to drink and drive. 'I am a mother as well, so I sympathize with you 100 per cent,' she said. 'I'm not taking any of this lightly. I wish none of this ever happened.' Champagne prohibited Deprez from driving for five years following the completion of her prison sentence. Dean PritchardCourts 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. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
28-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Saskatoon trial of man who stabbed partner to death now up to the judge
The case against accused murderer Thomas Hamp is closed and it's now up to a Saskatoon Court of King's Bench judge to decide which interpretation of events to agree with.
CBC
28-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Judge hears closing arguments in Saskatoon trial of man who stabbed partner to death
The case against accused murderer Thomas Hamp is closed and it's now up to a Court of King's Bench judge to decide which interpretation of events to agree with. Prosecutor Cory Bliss and defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle made final arguments Wednesday before Justice Grant Currie at the 28-year-old's judge-alone second-degree murder trial. The issue is not whether Hamp fatally stabbed his partner Emily Sanche on Feb. 20, 2022 — he admitted that at trial. Rather, the defence contends Hamp was in a mental health crisis that left him incapable of knowing that what he was doing was wrong. "There's only one explanation for why Thomas Hamp would have done this to Emily Sanche and it's he was suffering from an acute psychotic episode where he was not in touch with reality," Pfefferle said. The Crown is suggesting that Hamp was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed Sanche and then claimed an intruder had stabbed her and tried to kill him. "From our perspective, it's very unusual that someone would commit a crime while deluded and then immediately suggest that someone else committed the crime," Bliss said. Both Bliss and Pfefferle relied, to varying degrees, on a 25-page assessment done by forensic psychiatrist Shabehram Lohrasbe. The veteran doctor was hired by the defence. Lohrasbe concluded in his report, based on five hours of interviews with Hamp and a review of notes kept by Sanche and her cousin Catherine, that Hamp "was acutely and severely psychotic" when he killed Sanche in their apartment. "Psychosis was the dominant factor that drove his violence," Lohrasbe wrote. "It is likely that his capacity to 'know' that his actions were wrong, in the real world, was severely impaired." While testifying by video, Lohrasbe said he could not overstate the importance of the notes kept by Emily Sanche and her cousin. Pfefferle noted in his close that "her real time overview was not marred by memory, delusion, distortion or inaccuracy." "The detailed notes and text messages that Emily and her cousin Catherine compiled, described by Dr. Lohrasbe as 'incredibly important documents' are rare in their depth and immediacy." he said. "Dr. Lohrasbe, a psychiatrist with over four decades of experience and thousands of assessments to his name, testified that he had 'never seen anything like it.' Emily's text message chain, he testified was 'poignant, and so close to the offence' that it offered unparalleled insight into the rapid deterioration of Thomas's mental state." Bliss offered a different take on the impact of Sanche's detailed record. He suggested that a list compiled by the 25-year-old in her journal in the days before her death, which referenced the need for a mental health warrant and the necessity of seeing a doctor, actually provided the motive for the attack. Hamp, already in a drug-induced psychosis because of his sustained cannabis use, would have seen the list as evidence Sanche was going to force medical treatment and planning on leaving him, Bliss argued. This threat of a partner pulling away is often a trigger for violence in intimate partner cases, he said. Bliss referenced how Lohrasbe was generally concerned about the impact of high-potency cannabis on a user's mental health. The doctor agreed that symptoms from drug-induced psychosis could look like mental illness. "I think there is a real concern for the public that people that choose to take psychoactive drugs, and they lose touch with reality because of that, those people should be responsible for their crimes," Bliss said outside court after the day's proceedings were done.
CBC
26-05-2025
- CBC
Psychiatric report says Saskatoon man 'acutely and severely psychotic' when he fatally stabbed partner in 2022
A forensic psychiatrist who assessed accused killer Thomas Hamp said the 25-year-old "was acutely and severely psychotic" when he fatally stabbed his girlfriend Emily Sanche on Feb. 20, 2022. "Psychosis was the dominant factor that drove his violence," Shabehram Lohrasbe wrote in a 25-page assessment. "It is likely that his capacity to "know" that his actions were wrong, in the real world, was severely impaired." Hamp was charged with second-degree murder and is appearing before Justice Grant Currie in a judge-alone trial at Saskatoon Court of King's Bench. Defence lawyer Brian Pfefferle is not disputing that Hamp stabbed his partner. The point of contention between Pfefferle and prosecutor Cory Bliss is whether Hamp is criminally responsible for his actions. Treatment trail The defence hired Lohrasbe to do a psychiatric assessment. Lohrasbe testified that he met with Hamp twice in person and then again by video, for a total of five hours. He also interviewed Hamp's parents and reviewed reports from his clinical treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). He also reviewed detailed notes and text messages written by Sanche, who was studying for a master's degree in counselling and expressed concerns about her partner's deteriorating mental health in the year before he killed her. Lohrasbe also reviewed notes take by Sanche's cousin, Catherine. The notes included observations Emily made hours before her death, after the couple contacted the Saskatoon Crisis Intervention Service. Hamp was supposed to go to the hospital the day that he killed her. "He seemed extremely agitated and upset," she wrote. Lohrasbe said he's done thousands of assessments over his four-decade career and that the written records from the two young women "are incredibly important documents." He said Emily's text message chain "is poignant, and so close to the offence." "I've never seen anything like it." In his analysis, Lohrasbe said Hamp's worsening OCD symptoms and heavy cannabis use almost surely played a role in the psychotic episode, but "their precise potential roles cannot be delineated." Day of the killing Lohrasbe said Hamp was in the full throes of a psychotic episode the day he killed Emily Sanche. Hamp believed that the couple were under police surveillance and that friends and family were pedophiles, Lohrasbe said. He was suspicious of medical professionals, fearing that he would be castrated if he went to the hospital. "In some way the fear of going to hospital was intertwined with his fears of the police, surveillance, Tetris, technology, pedophilia, doctors, toxic medications, and the castration," Lohrasbe wrote. Hamp said he was obsessed with video game Tetris because he believed it was being used to test him and as a spying device. "The idea of killing Ms. Sanche and then himself came to him abruptly; 'I thought we both had to die to avoid a worse fate,'" the report said. "The 'worse fate' that awaited Ms. Sanche was, 'that Emily would be made to breed and then tortured to death.' He believed that Ms. Sanche was a target for 'their breeding because she came from a smart family.'" Lohrasbe concluded that the psychiatric assessment "would support the legal consideration for finding Mr. Hamp not criminally responsible."
