Dangerous offender hearing underway

Two weeks have been set aside in court for a hearing to determine if a former St. Catharines man, convicted of raping and sodomizing his children, should be jailed indefinitely. A dangerous offender hearing against the defendant, who cannot be identified due to a court-ordered publication ban that prohibits publishing information that would identify the victims, began Monday in Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines before Judge Linda Walters. The man was convicted in November 2015 of 18 counts of physical and sexual abuse related offences. If a court rules a person a dangerous offender, that person could be sentenced to jail for an indefinite period. Offenders can also be named long-term offenders, which means they could be sentenced to jail for two years or more and then be placed on a supervision order of up to 10 years. The law is intended to protect the public from the most dangerous violent and sexual predators. Experts in corrections and mental health must assess an offender’s behaviour in order to establish a psychological diagnosis as well as to determine if the person poses a high risk to reoffend. Court on Tuesday heard from a psychiatrist who prepared an extensive report on the defendant. Assistant Crown attorney Holly Nickel said the Crown will also call evidence from probation officers and supervisors with Correctional Service of Canada as well as look into allegations of domestic violence involving the defendant. At trial, court heard the man raped and sodomized his children on several occasions. One daughter testified the abuse began when she was seven or eight after her father showed her a pornographic film of a man abusing a child. Court heard that he told her, “This is how a father acts with his children.” The man also coerced his son, then nine, to sexually assault his sevenyear-old sister. He told the children “it was normal between brothers and sisters.” The defendant, who has lived both in Niagara and Quebec, has been in custody since he was arrested the fall of 2010.