Rapist ‘a high risk’ to attack again

Little hope treatment will work, dangerous-offender hearing told

An Edmonton rapist facing a dangerous offender designation is resistant to treatment and a high risk to reoffend, court has been told.

Anthony Winston Clark, 35, pleaded guilty in February to the random abduction and rape of a woman near the Queen Elizabeth Pool in July 2010. Since then, Crown prosecutors have been trying to designate him a dangerous offender, which could see him imprisoned indefinitely and is reserved only for those who show an escalating pattern of violence in their crimes.

As part of his hearing, two doctors from the Alberta Hospital who interviewed Clark said he would likely attack someone else if released.

“Overall, Mr. Clark remains a high risk for both sexual and violent recidivism,” wrote Roger Brown, a forensic psychiatrist at Alberta Hospital. “It is not apparent that any treatment program, release condition or management approach would significantly alter Mr. Clark’s risk for future violent or sexually motivated criminal acts.”

Brown noted that Clark had taken several programs to help deal with his sexual offences, anger and substance abuse, but none had a lasting effect. “Although Mr. Clark often receives favourable reviews in such treatment programs,” the report says, “his repeated acts of violent and sexual recidivism suggest that he has not been able to incorporate the content of these programs into a meaningful change in his lifestyle or behaviour.”

There is no sign Clark will benefit from further programs when similar ones have failed to help in the past, Brown added.

In the reports, Clark told doctors he had a turbulent childhood marked by physical and sexual abuse, including a stint as a prostitute in his teens.

Andrew Haag, a psychologist at Alberta Hospital, wrote that he found it particularly disturbing that Clark seemed more comfortable in prison than in regular life. His offences, Clark said, were inspired partially by a desire to return to prison.

“If Mr. Clark is truly uncomfortable in the community and, inversely, comfortable in a prison, even if Mr. Clark was to achieve remarkable treatment gains in the future these would have to be looked upon with skepticism,” Haag wrote.

Clark has a “lack of meaningful insight into his offending,” Haag’s report states.

On the night of July 11, 2010, Clark’s 24-year-old victim was walking alone down a bike path from Saskatchewan Drive to the Queen Elizabeth Pool area. As she headed to a picnic area to throw away some trash, she realized Clark was walking behind her.

Clark, a stocky man with a goatee and tattoo-covered arms, moved ahead of the woman on the path, then waited for her to pass and chased her. He then forced her off the path and raped her.

Less than two hours later, Clark walked into police headquarters in downtown Edmonton and confessed his crime.

Clark told police he had been high on crack cocaine at the time of the rape. He said he wanted to return to jail and that officers already had his DNA on file. It was a “slam shut case,” Clark said.

In 1996, when he was 19, he committed a similar crime in Sudbury, Ont., when he randomly grabbed and sexually assaulted a woman on the street. In 1999, he was convicted of breaking into a woman’s house and attempting to sexually assault her.

The hearing continues.