Further adjournment in Bindra sentencing
By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on October 15, 2022.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com
A Lethbridge man who has been waiting several months to be sentenced for sexually assaulting three women, will have to continue waiting after his latest court hearing had to be adjourned.Sohil Bindra, 36, was scheduled for a sentencing hearing Friday in Lethbridge provincial court, but it was unable to proceed after the sentencing judge was too ill to attend. The Crown and Calgary lawyer Alain Hepner were expected to present the judge with their respective recommendations for sentencing, but the matter was adjourned for a week, when a new date for sentencing will be scheduled.In the meantime, Bindra continues to wait at the Edmonton Remand Centre, where he has been in custody since he was found guilty in May of several sex-related offences against the three women.During Bindra’s trial last November and December, one of the women testified Bindra assaulted her in his vehicle in the spring of 2018. He was found guilty of sexual assault and administering a noxious substance in relation to the assault against the woman.
Another woman testified Bindra sexually assaulted her after he gave her and a friend a ride home from a bar in February of 2020. He was found guilty of housebreaking and commit sexual assault, sexual assault and administering a noxious substance in relation to that woman. He also faced a charge of sexual assault – in the form of an unwanted kiss – in relation to the woman’s friend to whom he gave a ride home, but Judge Jerry LeGrandeur said the Crown did not prove the absence of consent and he dismissed that charge.
A fourth woman told court during the trial that she was too drunk to drive home to Taber following a work Christmas party in December of 2018, and was sexually assaulted after Bindra allowed her to stay the night at his westside home. Although Bindra said she was coming onto him, she testified she did not consent and told him no. He was found guilty of administering a noxious substance and sexual assault.
Bindra was also found guilty on two drug charges; one for possessing cocaine and the other for possessing the substance he used to drug the women.During a subsequent sentencing hearing Aug. 2, court heard how the assaults impacted and forever altered the womens’ lives, and at least one of the women contemplated suicide.
“I debated taking my own life way too many times to count,” the woman wrote in her victim impact statement, which the Crown read during the hearing.
Another victim wrote “there were many, many days I had told my mom I wished I could die, and that I didn’t find life worth living,” and a third woman said “the pain I experienced from this event is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my entire life, which has been a life full of trauma and abuse from early childhood. I am unable to live life normally anymore. I’m always anxious and live in fear that something will happen to me again.”
Bindra denied the allegations and testified during his trial that the liaisons with the women were consensual.
Bindra also faces similar charges in relation to two other women. Trials had been set, but then postponed pending the outcome of the first trial and subsequent sentencing.
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