Child sex offender will be imprisoned indefinitely
Report says man still poses a high risk to children despite multiple treatments
Warning: Disturbing content
SASKATOON A Saskatoon judge declared a 40-year-old man a dangerous offender and took the rare step of imposing an indefinite prison sentence after concluding last month that the risk he poses to children is too high to be managed in any other way.
Marc Potter pleaded guilty on July 30, 2015, to sexually assaulting and exposing himself to a nineyear-old boy in Saskatoon over the course of several months between February and November 2014.
That child was not his first victim and Potter was taking his third sex offender treatment program at the time.
According to an agreed statement of facts presented in court, Potter met the boy at a public library in Saskatoon and they played computer games together, both with and without the boy’s mother present. The boy would also ride his bike to the University of Saskatchewan campus to meet Potter, who would buy him snacks.
The sexual abuse began with Potter masturbating in front of the child and progressed to touching him, showing him photos of naked children and adults, and taking photos of him with his clothes off.
The abuse happened in private as well as at a library, a park and the university, Queen’s Bench Justice Marilyn Gray noted in her written decision.
The boy “never disclosed this activity because Mr. Potter told him to keep it a secret and that he would be in trouble with his mother if he told,” Gray wrote.
“He knew (the boy’s) age and, while he acknowledged that his actions were illegal, Mr. Potter did not see them as harmful. He offended against (the boy) because of the opportunity and his ‘uncontrollable urges.’ ”
The lengthy process of declaring Potter a dangerous offender included the preparation of reports that provide a disturbing picture of his life history, summarized in Gray’s decision.
CHILDHOOD
Potter was two-and-a-half years old when he and his sister were removed from their mother’s home because of profound neglect and abuse. There is evidence their mother drank heavily during her pregnancies and both of them suffered neurological deficits as a result, Gray wrote.
Potter was removed from his adoptive family’s home in 1992 and placed in foster care “as a result of his sexual offending against young children in the neighbourhood,” Gray noted.
“Reports indicate that his offending began when he was about 12 and that there were numerous young victims, but no criminal charges were sworn. Given his persistent behaviour, his parents were unable to cope and, as a result, he was placed in a group home. There, he was charged with sexual assault after touching the genitals of three other residents, two 15-year-old females and one 13-year-old male.”
In July 1993, Potter was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to 15 months in custody in Ontario. When that sentence was up, he chose to attend the two-year Phoenix Sex Offender Treatment Program in Calgary. While in the program, at the age of 17, “he had a full sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy in spite of staff discouragement,” Gray wrote. He was discharged from the program in June 1997 to live independently.
EARLY ADULTHOOD
Although he was supervised in Calgary, sporadically saw a psychiatrist and was prescribed anti-androgen drugs (also known as chemical castration), Potter was charged in September 1998 with criminal harassment for offering money to a young boy in a park to pose for nude photos. Nine days later, he was picked up for threatening an officer with a pellet gun.
He was given a suspended sentence and placed on probation. A series of probation violations followed for possessing pornography, visiting public places where children congregate, and failing to attend counselling.
Each time, he was released again until May 2000 when he was returned to jail and subsequently re-enrolled in the Phoenix program. However, he was eventually terminated from the program with a poor prognosis.
Potter was again released from custody in November 2001 and agreed to the terms of a peace bond intended to protect the public. Within a few months, he breached it by purchasing a Swiss Army knife and was returned to jail for 30 days, followed by another probation order.
In November 2002, officers checked his apartment and found a collage of photos of children, clothed and unclothed. He admitted making it for sexual purposes, and subsequently received his first federal prison term, two years, after requesting treatment in a federal institution.
Potter was later moved to Saskatoon’s Regional Psychiatric Centre, where sex offender treatment providers concluded that he had trouble putting the treatment into practice. He applied for parole but was denied.
LIFE IN SASKATOON
When Potter’s sentence expired in November 2004, the prison system had no choice but to release him. He agreed to sign another peace bond, but less than four months later, he was arrested for breaching it by riding his bike past a school ground.
He pleaded guilty and was ultimately given another suspended sentence. He was back in the community again.
His probation officer “expressed concern that Mr. Potter could recite things that he had learned in treatment but had difficulty applying them,” Gray wrote.
His criminal record contains no further entries until his most recent conviction for abusing the nine-year-old boy.
Gray’s decision notes that “the High Risk Supervision Unit that once supervised those bound by a (peace bond) has been disbanded in Saskatoon.”
Dr. Todd Tomita, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Potter during the preparation of reports for the dangerous offender hearing, wrote the following:
“Even more concerning is the fact that Mr. Potter failed to avoid sexual reoffending even though he was disclosing contact with (the nine-year-old in Saskatoon) in sex offender treatment leading up to the offending and he would have known that detection and legal sanctions were probably inevitable.
“The fact that he was engaging in voluntary treatment, disclosing his contacts with the victim of the index offence, moving toward reoffending, and was unable to stop himself from doing so despite foreseeing the outcome suggest an inability to self manage his risk even with community treatment and volunteer supports in place. This suggests that his paedophilic disorder is at a severe level.
“It is difficult to envision a better or more optimal context in which Mr. Potter might have avoided reoffending than the one he was in in 2014. He had stable income through a disability pension and stable housing.”
Tomita testified that Potter reported his contact with the nineyear-old to a community psychiatric nurse in Saskatoon before he had started to abuse the boy, but “stopped seeing (the nurse) after she advised him to cease contact with the boy,” Gray noted in her decision.
“Similarly, although Mr. Potter had a good relationship with his probation officer, he accessed child pornography for six months before revealing that fact to (the probation officer).”
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
According to a federal corrections employee who testified at Potter’s hearing, a dangerous offender with an indeterminate sentence is eligible to apply for parole seven years after the date of the offence.
That means Potter can ask the national parole board to release him back into the community less than three years from now.