Hate Crime & Legal Update: Montreal Assault and Victoria Public Incitement of Hatred Charge
- Rochelle Direnfeld
- Aug 17
- 7 min read
Week of August 11, 2025.
Assault in Montreal’s Parc-Extension
On Monday, August 11, 2025, Sergio Yanes Preciado, 23, of Montreal was arrested and charged with assault causing bodily harm in relation to the August 8 attack on a Jewish father in front of his three children in Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighbourhood.
A video of the attack that has been circulating on mainstream and social media shows the assailant repeatedly punching the victim on the ground and then throwing what appears to be the victim’s kippah into a puddle. His children can be heard screaming and crying during the assault. The victim suffered injuries including a broken nose.
Preciado appeared in court on Tuesday where a brief psychiatric assessment was ordered to determine if he is “fit to stand trial.”
Under the Criminal Code, a court can order an assessment of the mental condition of an accused if it has reasonable grounds to believe that the assessment is necessary to determine “whether the accused is unfit to stand trial.”¹
The maximum period that such an order can be in place is 30 days.² A person is unfit to stand trial if, on account of mental disorder, the person is unable to conduct a defence or to instruct counsel to do so. The purpose of the fitness test is to ensure that the accused can meaningfully be present and participate in their trial.
The accused must have a reality-based understanding of the nature and object and possible consequences of the proceedings. The accused must have the ability to make decisions with respect to their trial and intelligibly communicate those decisions. The accused need not be able to make decisions in their best interests but, minimally, decisions that are not overwhelmed by delusions, hallucinations or other symptoms of their mental disorder.
Transient mental health symptoms do not necessarily compromise an accused’s ability to conduct a defence. The focus is on assessing the extent to which an accused’s mental disorder impairs their understanding of reality when making and communicating decisions in their defence.³
In law, there is a presumption of fitness to stand trial only displaced if the court is satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the accused is unfit to stand trial.⁴
Preciado appeared in court again on Wednesday. The court sealed the brief assessment report. However, some of its findings were mentioned during the hearing. To that extent, those references are not subject to the sealing order:
“(Preciado) worked at a cinema until Easter; there were difficult moments for him. There was a question of consuming drugs. He seemed to have delirious ideas linked to his actions.” Some of the details surrounding his mental health were also confirmed by his mother. According to the assessor, the hot weather in Montreal may have played a role in what happened (although to state the obvious, the weather is unlikely to explain what happened, absent mental illness.).
It bears repeating that the court must have reasonable grounds for believing the assessment is necessary to determine whether the accused is unfit to stand trial. Based on the available evidence, the accused’s mental health must be a live issue.
We know that mental health appears to be a live issue for another reason. As a result of the brief fitness assessment, the court ordered a psychiatric assessment. This assessment is to determine whether, at the time of the offence, the accused was suffering from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility.⁵
An accused is not criminally responsible for an offence if the act or omission was committed while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the accused incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.⁶ Like the fitness to stand trial assessment, the maximum period that the order can be in place is 30 days.
Preciado is next scheduled to appear in court on September 12, 2025.
The Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (Montreal Police) has yet to categorize this case as a hate-motivated offence. It is important to remember that in cases such as these, (unlike hate propaganda/speech offences) hate motivation is not an element of the offence that needs to be proven to sustain a conviction. A motivation based on bias, prejudice or hate, if proven, relates exclusively to what sentence is appropriate.
Under section 718.2(a)(i), it is an aggravating factor on sentence – potentially attracting a harsher sentence focused on deterrence and denunciation – when a crime is motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or on any other similar factor. That evidence may be based upon a variety of things such as utterances or actions of the defendant before, during or after the offence.
The fact that the police have not yet categorized the offence as hate-motivated does not preclude the prosecution from later contending that section 718.2(a)(i) applies.
It is also important to note that bias, prejudice or hate need not be the sole motivation in order for a court to be bound by section 718.2(a)(i). Multiple motivations may be at play, as long as bias, prejudice or hate forms at least part of the motivation for the commission of the offence. Further, there is an abundance of case law from across the country that stands for the proposition that an accused may be suffering from a significant mental disorder and still may be at least partially motivated by bias, prejudice or hate.
Unless an accused is unfit to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of mental disorder, they are not exempt from the application of section 718.2(a)(i) although the existence of some mental illness remains a relevant factor in the imposition of the sentence.
If an accused is found unfit to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of mental disorder there are a range of dispositions available to the court and provincial review board, depending on a series of factors including the safety of the public. The court or review board must take into consideration a victim impact statement.⁷
Public Incitement of Hatred Charge in Victoria
On July 28, 2025, Khalid El Boyok, 28 was formally charged in Victoria with public incitement of hatred in relation to an antisemitic rant he allegedly made during a demonstration in downtown Victoria on March 17, 2024.
A video posted on X displays part of that alleged conduct.
On March 17, 2024, officers of the Victoria Police responded to a report of alleged antisemitic remarks directed towards a group of Jewish demonstrators on the lawn of the British Columbia Legislature. The Major Crime Unit investigated and submitted a Report to Crown Counsel. The British Columbia Prosecution Service approved a charge of public incitement of hatred, and a warrant was issued for El Boyok. He was arrested on June 11, 2025. In the province of British Columbia (unlike most provinces and territories in Canada), the prosecution service must approve every charge laid by the police before it can proceed to prosecution.
Crown charge approval is different than Attorney General consent to lay a charge which is required for certain offences including three of the four hate propaganda offences. Public Incitement of Hatred is the only hate propaganda offence that does not require Attorney General consent.
The Victoria Police Department indicated in its press release: “The Victoria Police Department takes all hate offences seriously, regardless of the targeted group. Our role is to police behaviours, not beliefs,” said Detective Tom Hayward, Victoria Police’s Hate Crime Coordinator. “The prolonged nature of this investigation is an indicator of the seriousness of this type of offence and the complex nature of proving Criminal Code offences related to hate propaganda.”
We will continue to report on these cases as they develop.
Why Reporting Hate Crimes Matters – and How the Canadian Criminal Law Working Group (CCLWG) Can Help
Many hate-motivated incidents go unreported. But timely reporting is essential to preserving evidence, triggering investigations, and shaping effective policy.
The Canadian Criminal Law Working Group (CCLWG) – a collaboration between ALCCA, CIJA, and the Canadian Jewish Law Association – offers confidential legal guidance to those who have experienced or witnessed hate crimes. In some cases, the group can also report incidents on an individual’s behalf when safety or privacy is a concern.
If you’ve been the victim of or witnessed what you believe may be an antisemitic hate crime, contact us at info@cclwg.ca. Our team of criminal law experts is here to help.
Endnotes
Section 672.11(a) of the Criminal Code
Section 672.14 of the Criminal Code
Section 2 of the Criminal Code; R. v. Bharwani, 2025 SCC 26 at para. 6
Section 672.22 of the Criminal Code
Section 672.11(b) of the Criminal Code
Section 16 of the Criminal Code
Section 672.54 and 672.541 of the Criminal Code.
About the Author
Rochelle Direnfeld is ALCCA's Senior Criminal Counsel. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and has served in the Ontario Public Service for over 32 years as an assistant crown attorney, deputy crown attorney, crown counsel, and finally as a deputy director for Toronto Crown Attorneys in the Criminal Law Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General. Rochelle retired from public service at the end of 2023. During her career, Rochelle prosecuted a wide variety of Criminal Code cases in the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Rochelle focused a large part of her career on youth criminal justice, developing policy as well as training and lecturing crowns, the defence bar, the judiciary, and the police. Since 2018, Rochelle has been committed to battling hate-motivated offences and has sat on the Attorney General’s Hate Crime Working Group, providing legal advice to crown counsel and police on hate crimes. In the aftermath of October 7, Rochelle returned to work with the Hate Crime Working Group at Crown Law Office - Criminal until November 2024. Rochelle also serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of BOOST Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, a wrap-around agency serving children and youth who have been victims of abuse, as well as their families.