York University PhD student Mustafa Ururyar was given a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison, followed by three years’ probation, for sexually assaulting his fellow student, Mandi Gray.

“Those who commit the crime of rape must understand they do so at their peril,” said Ontario Court Judge Marvin Zuker, reading from his 55-page sentencing decision. “Rape is the ultimate violation of self, short of murder, except that it can be the murder of a soul.”

While Ururyar was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs to return to the Toronto South Detention Centre, it is unlikely he will spend more than a night there, as his lawyers have already scheduled to refile their appeal Thursday.

Gray has waived a publication ban on her name.

“Those who commit the crime of rape must understand they do so at their peril,” Zuker continued.

The Crown had sought a penalty of 12 to 18 months in custody while Ururyar’s lawyers sought a conditional sentence, or house arrest.

Court heard the two had been casually hooking up for two weeks when they closed down a Bloor St. bar on Jan. 31, 2015 and returned to his apartment. There, Gray said, Ururyar forced her to perform oral sex and then raped her.

The six-day trial started the same day as Jian Ghomeshi’s in February 2016, and was scattered over six months. In July, Zuker found Ururyar guilty of sexual assault, calling his story that the sex had been consensual “a fabrication, credible never.”

Four days later, he took the unusual step of revoking Ururyar’s bail — not because he considered the 29-year-old political science student a flight risk or threat to public safety, but because setting him free would send the message that sexual assault wasn’t serious, Zuker said.

The ruling was championed by sex assault survivors and their supporters as a new benchmark. Finally, it seemed a judge had listened to victims, they said. Zuker’s 169-page ruling called out rape myths and cited foundational feminist tomes like Susan Brownmiller’sAgainst Our Will: Men, Women and Rape.

“It doesn’t matter if the victim was drinking, out at night alone, sexually exploited, on a date with the perpetrator, or how the victim was dressed,” Zuker wrote in his ruling. “No one asks to be raped.”

But the backlash on social media started almost immediately, echoing what Ururyar’s defence lawyer had argued in court — that Gray was a liar, seeking fame and revenge because Ururyar had broken up with her. Gray said she received death and rape threats.

Ururyar’s lawyers filed an appeal immediately. Two weeks later, Superior Court Justice Michael Quigley overturned the decision to revoke Ururyar’s bail, and set him free until Sept. 13 — the night before his sentencing date.

In his reasoning, Quigley said a reasonable observer could conclude the case was “significantly tainted” by Zuker’s “views of perceived inequities that face sex assault complainants in the criminal justice system.” He also pointed out what he called a judicial error — that Zuker had cited social science articles and books in his ruling that had not been introduced in court, so lawyers did not have a chance to critically examine or counter them.

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The same reasonable observer, he wrote, could deem Zuker “allowed these social science sources to cloud his objective assessment of the evidence and the issue of credibility.”

Ururyar’s appeal lawyer, Mark Halfyard, said he will appear again in Superior Court on Thursday to secure Ururyar’s bail again, until his appeal, which is likely to be heard next year.