Ontario man who posted hospital selfie with woman's dying father sentenced to 60 days in jail
CBC
A London, Ont., man., who posted a selfie online showing him with a dying man in a Windsor hospital last year has received two months of jail time. Bubba Pollock is an activist who's protested against drag queens and drag storytimes. He was sentenced in a Windsor courtroom on Friday for his actions against Britt Leroux and the Windsor woman's terminally ill father.
Pollock pleaded guilty earlier this year to a charge of criminal harassment that stems from his actions in June 2023.
Ontario Justice Mark Hornblower described Pollock's behaviour as "an exercise of power over someone else, intended to send a message of intimidation."
Hornblower ruled that an incarceration period of 60 days is necessary to "denounce conduct of this nature."
Pollock was also handed three years of probation, which includes a 12-month ban from social media use.
Dressed in a blue suit, Pollock showed no emotion and seemed unaffected during Hornblower's reading of the sentence. While Hornblower was still speaking, Pollock conferred with his legal counsel and drank from a water bottle.
Pollock had been arguing online with Leroux, a Pride supporter and 2SLGBTQ+ activist.
Pollock then drove from London to Windsor, entered the hospital and gained access to Andre's room, where he took a photo of himself smiling while the patient was unconscious in the background.
The selfie pic was posted in a Facebook comment thread visible to Britt — to her shock and dismay.
During previous court proceedings, assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Holmes described Pollock's behaviour in the incident as "illegal, immoral," and "rotten." She was seeking six months of jail time. Pollock's lawyer, Ron Ellis, argued his client has issues with "impulsivity" and was only trying to "win an argument." He asked for a suspended sentence (community service without jail time) or a conditional sentence (house arrest).
But on Friday, Hornblower said a suspended sentence or a conditional sentence are insufficient in this case.
The judge said Pollock's actions "reflect planning and deliberation — not impulsivity."
Hornblower pointed to a separate case against Pollock in 2019, when he was convicted of posting an intimate image without consent.
Drawing a comparison, Hornblower said Pollock had again used social media "for nefarious purposes."
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.