Former city councillor seeks changes to probation order

Gary Leaman is under no illusion that his reputation in Penticton will ever be restored.

“A very bright and harsh light continues to shine on what was my darkest, most closely held secret for most of my life,” the former Penticton city councillor told a judge Monday.

“It’s been said that you’re only as sick as your secrets – I have no secrets in this community and the community stands on guard.”

Leaman, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to a pair of sex assaults, was in provincial court seeking changes to his probation order.

A publication ban applies to any information that would tend to identify his victims, who were assaulted between December 2007 and January 2009.

The 61-year-old was sentenced in September 2014 to 21 months in jail, but released in November 2015 after serving just 15 months. He’s now bound by a 27-month probation order.

Among the probation conditions he had relaxed Monday was a ban on being in any public place where kids under 16 might be present, so that he may attend one of his children’s athletic competitions.

In making the case for the changes, defence lawyer Michael Welsh noted his client successfully completed sex offender treatment while incarcerated at Ford Mountain Correctional Centre, and is now receiving private counselling and keeping up his study of Buddhism.

“He has continued, just as he did before the matter went to court, to push himself to understand what he had done and to develop the coping mechanisms that he needed in order to ensure that this is not a place he would ever put himself again,” said Welsh.

Leaman, who wore a grey suit and a beaded bracelet around his left wrist, became choked up as he addressed the court, noting he accepts “fully, and without reservation, the enduring consequences of my offending.”

“It is my experience that sex offenders never repay their debt to society. We are viewed as not only having done something wrong, but that there is something wrong with us,” he said.

“Notwithstanding my offences, I always try to play by the rules and be a law-abiding citizen. My offences will likely be the single, defining feature of my life for many people.”

Leaman served as a city councillor from 2002 to 2005, then ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2008 and again for council in 2011.

He managed a retail centre for 25 years, but retired in 2013, shortly before his charges came to light.