CONVICTED PEDOPHILE

More charges for ex-coach

Convicted pedophile and former junior hockey coach Graham James is facing more sex-related charges just weeks before his scheduled statutory release from prison.

Saskatchewan RCMP say James is facing criminal charges of repeated sexual assault that is alleged to have occurred when he was coaching the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League in the early 1990s.

The Mounties said in a release Monday that they began an investigation after the detachment in Swift Current, Sask., received a complaint from a former Broncos player in September 2013.

Police say a lawyer for James appeared Monday in Swift Current provincial court where the case was put over to June 19. The judge issued a publication ban on details that might identify the alleged victim.

Prosecutor Glen Herman said James has waived a preliminary hearing and has elected to be tried in Court of Queen’s Bench by judge alone.

None of the charges has been proven in court.

James is serving out the final weeks of a sentence for sexually abusing retired NHL star Theoren Fleury and Fleury’s younger cousin, Todd Holt, when they played for him with the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors.

James initially served 3 ½ years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in 1997 to sex offences against former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy and two others. Kennedy played for the Broncos at the time of the assaults.

James disappeared from public view when his sentence expired in 2000.

He quietly applied for and received a pardon in 2007, prompting national outrage and a tightening of the rules.

James came back to Canada from Mexico in 2010 to face more charges after Fleury came forward in his autobiography with allegations that the coach had sexually abused him.

James pleaded guilty and was initially sentenced to two years in 2012 for sexually abusing Fleury and Holt in the 1980s. An Appeal Court increased the sentence to five years.