FOG BLOG CANADA NEWS LOG: FORMER HEDLEY FRONT MAN JACOB HOGGARD GETS 5 YRS. IN JAIL!

Former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard sentenced to 5 years in prison for sexual assault Hoggard granted bail hours after Thursday's sentencing decision Canadian musician Jacob Hoggard was sentenced to five years in prison by a Toronto judge on Thursday, the third and final day of a sentencing hearing that began earlier this month.

Hoggard, the former lead singer of rock band Hedley, was found guilty of sexual assault causing bodily harm in June after raping an Ottawa woman in 2016.

The Crown was seeking a sentence of six to seven years for Hoggard — above the normal range for a sexual assault by someone with no criminal record, court heard. The prosecution argued Hoggard was a risk to the public. Meanwhile, the defence proposed a more lenient sentence of three to four years. They pointed to a psychiatric report that said he was a low risk to reoffend and had a good chance of rehabilitation.

In delivering her sentence in a downtown Toronto courtroom, Ontario Superior Court Justice Gillian Roberts said Hoggard's offence involved "gratuitous degradation" and "gratuitous violence."

"It is no exaggeration to say that [the woman] is no longer the same person she was before the attack. She was physically hurt … far more significant was the psychological hurt," Roberts said.

"Whatever fleeting moments of gratification Mr. Hoggard derived from his conduct, they have come at the staggering and utterly unacceptable cost of forever changing [the woman's] life."

The judge said she accepted the woman's evidence "in its entirety," including that Hoggard raped the woman multiple times anally, vaginally and orally, choked her, spit on her, called her a slut and a pig and oinked at her like an animal.