Jacob Hoggard began serving his sentence Friday after Ontario’s top court dismissed the Hedley frontman’s appeal of his sexual assault conviction.
The musician’s legal team said he surrendered into custody immediately before the ruling was delivered Friday, as is typical in criminal appeals.
The Appeal Court unanimously upheld Hoggard’s conviction despite finding his trial should not have heard the evidence of a psychologist who testified on the neurobiology of trauma.
Hoggard was found guilty in June 2022 of sexual assault causing bodily harm against an Ottawa woman and later sentenced to five years behind bars. He was released on bail hours later, pending his appeal.
Court documents show his lawyers appealed the conviction on four grounds, including that the trial judge erred by admitting the evidence of clinical psychologist Lori Haskell on the neurobiology of trauma.
They also argued the trial judge wrongly permitted prosecutors to argue that the expert’s …