Suspect in horrific Cobalt attack remains in jail

The suspect in a vicious attack on a 16-year-old Cobalt girl last week remains in the North Bay Jail today awaiting a bail hearing.

This morning about a dozen demonstrators protested outside the Haileybury courthouse, where the case is being heard, asking that 18-year-old Phillipe Gagnon be denied bail. The family remains in Ottawa where Kaylie Smith remains in hospital after being run over by a vehicle and then attacked with a sword.

Police are calling it a case of intimate partner violence.

Gagnon appeared via video.

See: Cobalt teenage attack victim in 'stable' condition in Ottawa hospital

The next appearance has been put off for two weeks (Nov. 26) and no bail was granted today. The judge has issued a publication ban on all evidence presented in bail court.

The protesters, using a megaphone, were loud enough that they could be heard inside the courtroom chanting "common sense, no bail." The protesters vowed to return in two weeks.

Kaylie's best friend, 16-year-old Kessie Pellerin skipped school today to attend the protest. She told BayToday that she used to hang out with Smith and Gagnon and knows the two very well. She says no one is surprised the attack happened.

She says Smith and Gagnon broke up about a week before the attack on Kaylie.

CTV news is reporting that Gagnon was sentenced to house arrest five days before the Nov. 3 assault and was found guilty Oct. 29 of breaking into a home and assaulting a man on May 11. Gagnon also received two concurrent 60-day conditional sentences, 18 months probation, and a two-year weapons prohibition and was ordered to submit DNA.

A vigil was held on Sunday night with over 100 people attending.

The family says Kaylie is awake in the hospital and in stable condition.

On November 3, at 6 p.m., Temiskaming OPP were called to the scene of the attack, where a vehicle had struck the girl at the intersection of Helen Street and Prospect Avenue, near Highway 11B after getting off a bus and walking home following a shift at work.

The male driver then exited the vehicle and attacked the victim with a sword, says an OPP release.