Man who killed UBC Okanagan security guard gets 15 years, as judge highlights drug-induced psychosis

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has sentenced a Kelowna man to 15 years in prison for killing a female security guard on UBC’s Okanagan campus in 2022.

Dante Ognibenne-Hebbourn, 24, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Tuesday for killing 24-year-old Harmandeep Kaur when she was working on campus during an early morning shift. 

The court heard details of the attack, which happened in three intense acts of violence over a 10-minute period. The accused kicked Kaur nearly two dozen times in the head while she was lying on the ground. 

In delivering the sentence, Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said Ognibenne-Hebbourn had a long history of mental health issues and was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed Kaur.

The judge said the killing was unsettling because it was “almost random and senseless,” and called it another example of extreme violence the courts are seeing by someone in drug psychosis.

“Offences of this nature cause immediate harm to the victims and their families and friends, but they also reduce the quality of life in the community as a whole, leaving all of us in a constant state of distrust and watchfulness,” Holmes said.

Ognibenne-Hebbourn had no criminal record prior to the attack. 

The court heard he was raised in Ontario, where he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on three occasions. He was diagnosed with polysubstance use disorder and was taking monthly injections of anti-psychotic medication.

In 2021, Ognibenne-Hebbourn moved to B.C. to live with his father.

In September 2021, he stopped taking prescribed anti-psychotic medication.

The court heard Ognibene-Hebbourn’s father contacted his son’s case manager in the days before the attack, and expressed concerns that his son’s mental health was seriously deteriorating.  

A Critical Response Team nurse spoke with Ognibene-Hebbourn the day before the attack.

The nurse called Ognibene-Hebbourn’s father and advised him to take his son to Kelowna General Hospital if there were any imminent safety concerns.

‘A hard-working, loving daughter’

Members of Kaur’s family have said she came to Canada from India in 2015 and was working at the university to raise money to go back to school to become a paramedic.

She received her permanent residency just weeks before she died, in February 2022.

Several members of Kaur’s family were in the courtroom gallery during the hearing, including her mother and four others who had travelled from India for the sentencing hearing.

A victim impact statement from her mother described Kaur as having “a pure heart, a strong spirit and endless love for her family. She was a hard-working, loving daughter.”

“She came to Canada with dreams, not only for us, but for her family,” the statement read.

Her mother wrote about the grief her family has suffered since her daughter’s death, and asked the court to for a sentence to serve as a deterrent so that “no other family has to experience what we are going through.”

“Every day since her death, we have lived with unbearable grief.  There is no peace in our home, only silence and sorrow,” read the statement.

‘This falls short of justice’

After the hearing Kaur’s cousin Amrit Pal Singh told reporters his family was disappointed in the sentence.

“I think a fair sentence would be life imprisonment,” Singh said.  “We recognize the justice system but we are disappointed with the outcome.”

Ognibene–Hebbourn has been in custody since he was arrested in 2022 and was awarded one and a half times credit for the time he has already served. 

That leaves just over 10 years left on his federal prison sentence, Holmes told the court.

“This falls short of justice,” Singh told reporters.

“Ten years from now he’ll be 34-years old and we don’t know what he will do. There could be another Harmandeep.”

LISTEN | CBC News reporter Brady Strachan on the court case: