Charalambous, who is serving a life sentence in B.C., was a family physician when he contracted the killing of two young patients, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
In 1991, 19-year-old\u00a0Sian\u00a0Simmonds\u00a0and her sister, Katie\u00a0Simmonds, lodged complaints to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, accusing\u00a0Charalambous\u00a0of inappropriate sexual behaviour.\u00a0Charalambous\u00a0had been their family doctor for 10 years.<\/p>\n
![\"Sian](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/18b99_sian-simmonds.jpg\")
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Sian Simmonds was killed by a hired gunman on Jan. 27, 1993, in Surrey, B.C. Josephakis Charalambous, her family doctor, contracted the killing to stop her from testifying about sexual misconduct to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. (Hancockhouse.com)<\/p>\n
The college scheduled a disciplinary hearing for March 1993, but just weeks before, on\u00a0Jan.\u00a027, Sian\u00a0Simmonds was shot and killed by\u00a0David Schlender, a hired hit man who made his way into her home by saying he had scratched her car.<\/p>\n
Her sister was not home at the time.<\/p>\n
Contract killing<\/h2>\n
In November 1994, Charalambous was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole for 25 years. The trial judge ruled it was a contract killing he had arranged through an acquaintance, Brian West, to prevent the Simmonds sisters from testifying before the college.<\/p>\n
![\"Josephakis](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/18b99_josephakis-charalambous.jpg\")
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Charalambous was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994 for contracting the killing of his young patient. This photo was taken during an earlier arrest in 1985. (Hancockhouse.com)<\/p>\n
Since Charalambous’s incarceration in 1995, the correctional service\u00a0has made a number of administrative decisions based on past allegations of sexual misconduct involving other patients. In 1989, he was found guilty by the college of “infamous conduct” (the term used for dishonourable or disgraceful conduct) for his relationship with a former patient.<\/p>\n
That patient had been under his care from the age of 12 to 14. When she was 15, they began to cohabit and became sexually involved, and she\u00a0later became his wife. Between 1985 and\u00a01998, Charalambous was also charged with eight counts of sexual assault, seven related to complaints from former patients, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
All of the charges were eventually stayed, including six that were stayed after he had exhausted all appeals related to his murder conviction.<\/p>\n
Federal Court ruled\u00a0against inmate<\/h2>\n
Charalambous has challenged the inclusion of sexual references in his record through grievances to the correctional service, as well as through a judicial review process at the Federal Court. All have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
He had argued\u00a0there was no sexual component in his crime, making his case “distinguishable from cases where death is caused to the victim by a person while committing or attempting to commit sexual assault.”<\/p>\n
The Federal Court ruling from\u00a0Justice Luc Martineau said while the correctional service is required to take all reasonable steps to ensure that any information about an offender that it uses is as accurate, up to date and complete as possible,\u00a0“that does not mean that CSC must reinvestigate information obtained from reliable sources such as provincial ministries, police forces and the courts,” the ruling reads.<\/p>\n
\n\n ![\"SCC](\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/18b99_scc-dec-11-2014-snow-weather.jpg\")
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A view from a snowy Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa toward the Peace Tower. (Laura Payton\/CBC)<\/p>\n
\n\n\n\nArticle source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/physician-charalambous-killer-supreme-court-1.3942592?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canada’s top court will not\u00a0hear a complaint from a medical doctor who hired a hit man to kill a young patient who had accused him of sexual abuse. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Thursday an application for leave to appeal from Josephakis Charalambous, with costs. As is standard practice, the court did not release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-63848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}