La Ronge man ruled dangerous offender, sent to jail
A La Ronge man’s history of domestic and sexual violence toward female spouses and relatives has left him designated a dangerous offender after he was convicted of his fourth sexual assault.
Judge Inez Cardinal ruled Leonard Thomas Ross, 54, met the dangerous offender criteria, having committed 14 prior violent offences and spent most of the past 38 years either behind bars or breaching his release conditions due to his “disdain for authority.”
The Crown initiates a dangerous offender (DO) hearing when it believes an offender has demonstrated a pattern of violent behaviour that can no longer be managed through conventional sentencing.
Dangerous offenders receive either indeterminate or determinate sentences. Cardinal sentenced Ross to an indeterminate prison term.
“I find that nothing short of detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period will adequately protect the public against the commission by Mr. Ross of a serious personal injury offence,” she wrote in her recently-released decision.
The predicate offence, from 2015, involved Ross trying to rape a cognitively-challenged woman whom he invited to smoke marijuana in his shack. The woman escaped after pushing Ross over, according to the facts presented in court.
In a victim impact statement, a support worker said the woman has not been herself since the attack.
Ross had three prior sexual assault convictions for raping two female relatives in separate incidents in 1994 and another relative in 2000. He also had assault convictions against three of his spouses and one of his six children; the child was only seven months old at the time.
A future where he is sober, able to live off the land … is still open and available to Mr. Ross.
A pre-sentence report outlined Ross’s dysfunctional childhood of bouncing between foster homes, residential schools and neglectful family members. He started drinking alcohol and sniffing gas as a young boy.
Psychiatric assessments done ahead of the DO hearing determined Ross has both anti-social personality and substance-abuse disorders, often downplaying or blaming others for his actions and dismissing probation orders and institutional programs.
The shining light in his life is his art, reports found.
“A future where he is sober, able to live off the land or find employment, and supplement his income with his art is still open and available to Mr. Ross,” Cardinal wrote.
She found Ross met the DO criteria because the predicate offence involved a “serious personal injury,” forming a pattern of violence that is likely to continue and cannot be properly managed through treatment in the near future.
The parole board assesses when, if ever, a DO serving an indeterminate sentence can be released from custody, and ensures they receive lifelong supervision to protect the public.