Sex offender ordered back in custody
A compulsive public masturbator who was granted statutory release as he finished a three-year prison sentence is back in custody after a parole board deemed his “undue risk to society” to be beyond his control.
James Peter McKnight, 38, was sentenced in Saskatoon provincial court in June 2015 after pleading guilty to exposing himself on three separate occasions, as well as violating a court order to stay away from schools and playgrounds.
McKnight was granted statutory release — which allows federal offenders to serve the final third of their sentences in their home communities — in May, but that was suspended after he was spotted in the children’s section of a bookstore.
In a decision handed down Dec. 19, the parole board said that incident — as well as a previous warning issued after he was found during a curfew check to be watching pornography in his home with the windows open — necessitated a “return to incarceration” for him.
“Since your access to parks and schools was restricted, it appears you were getting more creative in attending places that were not monitored,” the parole board wrote in the decision, which is addressed to McKnight.
“Your behaviour resulting in your current suspension is consistent with your criminal history of sexual offending, and demonstrates you are (or) were back in your crime cycle.”
The parole board also imposed new conditions on McKnight’s next legislated release, including that he stay away from any place where children are likely to congregate, and not work or volunteer in any position of trust toward children.
“These special conditions are imposed in order to protect society and facilitate your reintegration as a law-abiding citizen,” the board said in its decision. “They are limited to what is reasonable and necessary, consistent with public safety.”
A Parole Board of Canada spokeswoman said the institution has not yet learned from Correctional Service Canada (CSC) when McKnight will next be eligible for statutory release. A CSC spokeswoman said in an email that the date has not yet been calculated.
His three-year-sentence is scheduled to end on May 25, 2018.
McKnight has a history of exposing himself in public, and police issued a warning when he moved to Saskatoon in 2013. By 2015, he appeared to be doing well but then began parking his car in residential areas, rolling down the windows and masturbating.
Children aged between 10 and 13 witnessed him on three occasions in April and May 2015, by which point undercover police officers were trailing him. He was arrested and charged after a uniformed officer followed up on reports of a man in a car exposing himself.
“I’ve been going to treatment for a few years and I was working extremely hard at it, and I was doing very, very well,” McKnight said in court, before his sentence was handed down.
“At that point, when I stopped working so hard and being so diligent and vigilant in my treatment, that’s kind of when it went downhill. But I do know that I can be successful. I have been successful.”