Bad rep made support difficult
Whether it was finding a place to live or getting counselling, nothing was easy for Ronald Teneycke because of his unsavoury reputation, a former probation officer testified Thursday at Teneycke’s dangerous-offender hearing in Penticton.
Mike Cliffe, who supervised Teneycke for a 2 1/2-year period ending in June 2010, said his client, who self-identifies as Metis, had at one point sought counselling through the Osoyoos Indian Band, but was rejected.
“The band wasn’t receptive to Mr. Teneycke being involved in that. They felt that because of his profile in the community and the media attention they basically said it would be better if he received counselling somewhere else,” Cliffe explained.
He said Teneycke later brushed off a suggestion that he ask the Penticton Indian Band for help.
“I think that he felt that if he went to programming it wasn’t going to work well for him because of the fact he was so well known in the South Okanagan,” Cliffe said.
Housing problems came next.
Cliffe said Teneycke lived with his elderly uncle in Oliver until November 2009, at which point the uncle became concerned about getting into a confrontation with Teneycke, whom he suspected of drinking in the home, and asked Mounties to help evict his nephew.
Teneycke then rented a cabin at the Gallagher Lake Resort, but the arrangement didn’t last long, because other residents there were warned by police about Teneycke — a high-risk sex offender — moving in, and subsequently alerted the media.
Worried the media attention would hurt his business, the resort owner evicted Teneycke after a week, according to Cliffe.
By that point, Teneycke had nowhere else to live except at his mother’s house in Okanagan Falls, but was banned by the terms of his probation from doing so. Court didn’t hear where Teneycke went next.
The Crown called Cliffe as a witness to demonstrate some of the difficulties associated with releasing Teneycke into the community. As such, the Crown is seeking to have him declared a dangerous offender and sent to jail indefinitely.
Defence counsel Michael Welsh in his cross-examination of Cliffe was, however, able to show Teneycke could also be a model probationer at times.
Welsh had Cliffe admit that Teneycke called in “religiously” as required every time he paid a visit to his mother in Okanagan Falls — after having his probation order amended to do — and checked in at the probation office whenever scheduled to do so.
“I don’t recall him ever missing an appointment in the time I supervised him,” said Cliffe.
The dangerous-offender hearing was launched after Teneycke confessed to a July 2015 crime spree that included robbing an Oliver store at gunpoint and later shooting a man to steal his truck.
The hearing, which began Tuesday, is scheduled to resume July 31.
Teneycke’s criminal record dates back to 1981, but he gained notoriety in 2007 when police in the South Okanagan warned the public about his release from prison after completing a 12-year sentence for sexual assaulting a teenager and threatening to kill a correctional officer. He has been in and out of jail ever since.