Toronto PATH stabber denied conditional discharge: Ontario Review Board

Five days after an annual Ontario Review Board (ORB) hearing to determine the future of Rohinie Bisesar, a Toronto woman found not criminally responsible (NCR) for stabbing a stranger to death in Toronto’s underground PATH system in December 2015, Bisesar has had her detention order extended within the forensic service of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

In its disposition from the May 19 hearing, the ORB writes the person in charge of Bisesar is ordered to create a program for the detention in custody and rehabilitation of the accused, but at his or her discretion, may allow Bisesar to attend within or outside of the hospital for necessary medical, dental, legal
or compassionate purposes.

She is also allowed to enter the community accompanied by staff or a person approved by the person in charge, and to enter the community indirectly supervised.

The change from the 2020 disposition which stipulated that Bisesar could only live in the community in “supervised accommodation approved by the person in charge,” is that she is now allowed to “live in the community in accommodation approved by the person in charge.”

At the hearing last week, Bisesar’s lawyer Marcus Bornfreund argued his client should be granted a conditional discharge because she’s been an exemplary patient who, when on her medication, has a low risk to re-offend.

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But Bisesar’s forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Georgia Walton, told the five-person panel that there is a risk of deterioration of her mental health on her first admission into the community and the detention order would allow the hospital to quickly intervene should that happen.

Walton also told the ORB that there are few supervised beds available in the community — something she felt was necessary for Bisesar’s secure rehabilitation.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the community and this is one of the more high-profile cases we’ve seen in Ontario, where Ms. Bisesar’s face has appeared multiple times in the media,” Crown counsel Michael Feindel commented at the hearing.

“I don’t imagine that is a small factor at this stage. It speaks to the needs of the accused. If things unravel or some kind of encounter puts Ms. Bisesar in a stressed or panicked state, there is a package in place to address that rapidly.”

Denise Junor-Sagar, a cousin of the stabbing victim — 28-year-old Rosemarie “Kim” Junor — wrote in an email to Global News that the Toronto police has supported the family over nearly six years of what it calls a “sickening ordeal” and is still in disbelief that Bisesar was found NCR.

“Kudos to them for rehabilitating her. However, I cannot help thinking ‘what if she decides not to take her medication?'” Junor-Sagar said.

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The panel was told Bisesar, who is now 46-years-old, takes two anti-psychotic medications given by injection every four weeks and a daily anti-psychotic tablet. Walton told the panel the patient is stable while taking medication, but if she stopped, her schizophrenic symptoms would likely reappear.

The Ontario Review Board will publish its reasons for its latest disposition within a month.