Registered sex offender application postponed

Lawyers have postponed until the new year applying for an order that would require a man sentenced in June to 15 years in prison for a vicious sexual assault to register under the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.

During a hearing this week in Lethbridge provincial court, the Crown was expected to apply to have Denzel Dre Colton Bird registered under SOIRA. But it was adjourned until Jan. 7 pending a decision by the Court of Appeal on whether it will uphold a judge’s decision last April to strike down a section of the Criminal Code that orders mandatory lifetime registration on the national sexoffenders list.

The order was not granted when Bird was sentenced in June because of Justice Andrea Moen’s ruling, which no longer gave courts the authority to impose SOIRA. But the ruling has since been temporarily stayed in light of the appeal, restoring authority to judges.

While some judges have granted SOIRA applications since the stay, Lethbridge Judge Jerry LeGrandeur wants to wait for the Court of Appeal’s decision, which is not expected at least until the spring of next year. Defence also wants time to consider whether it will join with the Crown for a SOIRA application, or oppose it.

Bird pleaded guilty last year to aggravated sexual assault and admitted that on Sept. 30, 2016 he attacked a woman with a metal pipe and sexually assaulted her before dragging her into an alley and dumping her body into a residential garbage can.

LeGrandeur called Bird’s attack a “horrifying act,” which left the woman and her family forever scarred.

The woman also sustained severe traumatic brain injuries and was in a medically induced coma for several weeks. Nearly a month after the attack she was moved from intensive care to a unit that could manage her traumatic brain injury, and over the next month she began improving neurologically. She was finally discharged from hospital in Calgary Jan. 31, 2017.

Bird was arrested at a westside apartment building five days after the attack, and he told police he did not recall anything about the morning in question and that he had never seen the victim before. He claimed he never hurt her and he was drinking near some schools on the westside at the time of the attack. He eventually admitted his guilt, provided a re-enactment and described to police details of the attack.

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