Man jailed indefinitely for sex assaults on teen
A man who killed a prostitute in anger in 2003 has been declared a dangerous offender after recently being convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
Jatin Patel, 43, has been ordered jailed for an indefinite period of time following a sentencing hearing in B.C. Supreme Court.
The slaying of the prostitute in a North Vancouver motel room occurred in May 2003 after Patel had been in jail for offences committed in the United States and had been deported back to Canada.
A day after arriving back in Canada, he killed Shelby Tracey Tom in anger after he discovered that she was transsexual. After striking her violently in the throat, he placed her naked body in a closet in the room, hidden by linen and clothing.
Patel went into the motel lobby where he had a chance meeting with a woman who sold him drugs and then returned with him to his room where they did drugs and had sex.
When the woman, who is not identified in a ruling in the dangerous offender case, discovered the body, Patel told her about the killing. The woman discouraged him from dismembering the body. He moved the victim — shrouded in plastic bags and a mattress cover inside a shopping cart — to the rear of a store near the motel, where the body was later discovered.
Patel was sentenced to nine years in prison for manslaughter, but had the sentence cut to 41/2 years after receiving credit for time served.
In January 2015, he lured the 13-year-old victim to a motel in Surrey after sending an unsolicited Facebook message to her asking her if she liked to party. He provided the girl, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, with crystal methamphetamines and sexually assaulted her. A female friend of the girl, who also cannot be named, was present in the room at the time.
Patel, who has a lengthy criminal recording involving other offences, later boasted in a text message to another man that he’d had the “time of my life,” describing the experience in the text as “2 ROCK HARD BODIES TO PLAY WITH” and that he wanted another night with the two girls.
The second incident of sexually assaulting the teen happened in March 2015 when Patel, who was addicted to methamphetamines and had attended numerous treatment programs, invited her and her female friend to a recovery house where he was staying.
He was convicted of a further sexual offence, which occurred in February 2015. On that occasion, he touched the buttocks of a 13-year-old girl who was shopping with her mom in a Safeway store.
In the decision by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Ball to designated Patel a dangerous offender, the manslaughter conviction was not relied upon by the Crown to demonstrate a failure by Patel to control his sexual impulses since his motivation was seen to have been a sense of betrayal.
But the killing was seen to be an aggravating factor in the judge’s decision to impose the indefinite jail sentence on Patel.