(Original Post 6-19-08)
A convicted killer with a history of violence against women was sentenced to 17 years in prison Monday for killing 36 year old Theresa Innes, whose body was found in a hockey bag in a home NE of Edmonton, AB in May 2006. He was found guilty of committing an indignity to a dead body for storing it in the freezer for 5 months before dumping it. Thomas Svekla, 40, was formally sentenced for 2nd degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence with a parole period between 10 and 25 years. (1st degree murder carries 25 to life).
The Crown (Canadian federal prosecutors) asked for that maximum sentence for Svekla because of his history of violence against women and the degradation of Innes’ body.
An example of his violence against women includes Svekla’s alleged attack on a High Level, Ab woman in the summer of 2005. He’ll go to trial later this summer for sexual assault and uttering threats.
The woman, who can't be identified, testified at Svekla's trial in Edmonton. She told the court Svekla attacked her and threatened to kill her after they shared a six-pack of beer and went back to his apartment.
Innes’ family testified at the sentencing how there was a hole left by her killing.
Outside court, the Innes family expressed satisfaction with the sentence. They also thanked Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson for his dedication to the case. But it will never take the place of the "hole in her heart," said Beverly Innes, Theresa's mother. Earlier in the day the court heard an emotional statement from Innes's son, Mike, who called his mother a "kind and caring person" who had her "up and downs."
"She never missed calling every weekend, on birthdays and Christmas. I remember her laughs and her jokes," Mike Innes told the court.
Svekla's actions have changed all that, he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
"She was not there to see me graduate, she won't be there to see me get married.… Those dreams were taken from me."
The defense attorney for Svekla, Robert Shaigec, conceded his client’s lack of remorse, but still asked for a non-parole period of only 15 years. Justice Sterling Sanderman of the Court of Queen's Bench presided over the four month long trial and the day long sentencing hearing.
Svekla was the first person tried under Project Kare, which is a joint RCMP/Edmonton task force which is probing the murders and disappearances of over 20 women in “high risk” lifestyles over the past 25 years.
(Update 5-29-10) Svekla was declared a dangerous offender Thursday, May 27 in a hearing presided over by Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Judge Christine Eidsvik. She said that a psychiatric report prepared by Canadian officials presented him as a sexual psychopath with a high risk of reoffending. Judge Eidsvik said that Svelka has a "pathology for which there is no cure...It is remarkable the number of people he has injured and harmed."
Besides killing Innes, Svekla was convicted of raping and threatening another woman in September 2008, and sexually assaulting a 5 year old girl back in 1995. Because of this history, Crown Prosecutor Ashley Finlayson said the judge's decision was the right one. "In our opinion, Mr. Svekla was a person with a history of violence against women, and based on the evidence that we had and which we called in court, it was our view he would not have been manageable in the community had he been released."
Kathy King, an advocate for sex-trade workers, said she was relieved with Svekla's designation. [Her] 22-year-old daughter, Caralyn, disappeared from the streets of Edmonton in 1997. Her body was found in a canola field in Sherwood Park, east of Edmonton, in September of that year."I am relieved that whatever happens with the appeal, he will not be out on the streets, because I really truly believe that the women of Edmonton deserve protection from that man," King said.
King said she would still like to know whether Svekla is responsible for her daughter's death.
Dangerous offenders must be held indefinitely until they can prove that they are no longer a unmanageable threat to society. According to Corrections Canada, there are 415 such offenders as of May 27, 2010.
Showing posts with label dangerous offender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dangerous offender. Show all posts
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Self-described "rape hound" declared dangerous offender by Canadian court
Chris Thompson, The Windsor Star
Published: Saturday, September 26, 2009
A self-described "rape hound" must be put away indefinitely to protect the public, a dangerous offender hearing heard in final arguments Friday.
"One cannot command the public safety being protected without some sort of supervision of Mr. (Jeffrey) Bastien for the rest of his life," said assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota.
Bastien, 33, a repeat sexual offender, has been the subject of a dangerous offender hearing that has been sitting periodically since February 2008. The conviction that led to the dangerous offender application occurred in May 2006, when Bastien was found guilty of breaking into a teenage girl's home, sexually assaulting her, striking her and threatening her.
In the midst of the attack the Grade 11 student had the presence of mind to dial 911, while Bastien's attention was elsewhere. Police responded to the call and arrested Bastien within minutes.
Nikota told Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson that Bastien has a history of sexual deviance, impulsivity, substance abuse and a predilection for violence.
"He has an utter lack of empathy, an utter lack of understanding of the enormity of his conduct. He has no understanding that he could permanently scar these women's lives."
Nikota recapped the series of sexual crimes that recur in his criminal record, many of them committed shortly after being released from prison. "This is an individual who shows violent antisocial disposition. It is part and parcel of his soul, it would seem."
Bastien's lawyer Brian Dube said his client should not be declared a dangerous offender and should instead be sentenced to six years for the sexual assault.
"The number one thing, I think, is whether Mr. Bastien's underlying disorders are treatable or not treatable," said Dube.
He recalled a brief time when Bastien was being held at the Ontario Regional Treatment Centre in Kingston when his behaviour was kept under control.Dube recounted how Bastien was struck by a car at the age of five and suffered serious head trauma.
He referred to a number of other cases where people were declared dangerous offenders who were extremely clever, cunning, manipulative and evil. Dube said Bastien doesn't fall into that category because of his diminished mental capacity. "It's really a punishment of last resort."
(Update 11-21-09) Bastien, the self-described "rape hound," was put away indefinately by Canadian Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson on Wednesday, November 18. In Canada, dangerous offenders are detained indefinately, with review at the 7 year point and every two years thereafter. According to Justice Patterson, “There is a high likelihood that Mr. Bastien will not contain his sexual urges and will reoffend- There is a substantial permanent risk to the community.”
During 37 days of testimony over 21 months, Patterson heard from psychiatrist after psychiatrist who said Bastien suffers from mental illness, sexual deviancy and drug dependency. He attacks even when chemically castrated and his crimes show a troubling pattern of increasingly violent behaviour toward women. Patterson concluded Bastien, who suffered a head injury as a child and has a low IQ, needs 24-hour supervision and can’t be managed in the community.
Bastien has racked up 43 criminal convictions. In the past 15 years, he has had only one day of freedom, being on probation, in jail or in a psychiatric hospital for his entire adult life. Every time he is released from custody, he commits a new crime, often within hours.
A mother was attacked in a downtown Windsor, ON parking lot on the first day of her new job March 29, 1999. She had finished working when Bastien knocked her to the ground and groped her through her underwear. She escaped only because she punched Bastien in the head. She did it because “You think you’re going to get raped. You’re going to die. All I could think was who’s going to take care of my children.”
On Oct. 10, 2000, in Toronto, on the very day he was released from custody for the parking garage attack, Bastien grabbed a woman on the street, put her in a headlock and tossed her into a concrete flowerpot. Minutes before the unprovoked attack, Bastien had been in a Business Depot store, groping female customers on the buttocks.
Three weeks to the day of his release from Millbrook prison where he was in custody for the Toronto attack, Bastien was back in Windsor. He attacked three women in and around the same casino parking garage where he attacked his first victim two years earlier. He grabbed one woman’s breasts, simulated intercourse with a second woman and knocked a third to the ground, shoving his hands down her pants. He made himself out to be the victim, because the third woman bit his fingers when he forced them into her mouth.
Bastien was denied parole twice after bragging about his rape fantasies of pulling female guards through his prison cell. After he was released, he tried to grope a woman caseworker assigned to help him. May 5, 2006 marked the last day of freddom for Bastien, as he showed up, naked from the waist down in a teen girl's home. He followed her to her bedroom and beat her. She called 911, which recorded the attack, including the girl's screams.
“He has chosen to carry out increasingly violent offences against women. There is no other way to protect the public but a dangerous offender designation,” said Assistant Crown Attorney Gary Nikota.
The first parking lot victim, who still fears going alone to lots, said that “It breaks my heart that it happened over and over again. If they don’t keep him locked up, he’ll do this again and again, woman after woman.”
Published: Saturday, September 26, 2009
A self-described "rape hound" must be put away indefinitely to protect the public, a dangerous offender hearing heard in final arguments Friday.
"One cannot command the public safety being protected without some sort of supervision of Mr. (Jeffrey) Bastien for the rest of his life," said assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota.
Bastien, 33, a repeat sexual offender, has been the subject of a dangerous offender hearing that has been sitting periodically since February 2008. The conviction that led to the dangerous offender application occurred in May 2006, when Bastien was found guilty of breaking into a teenage girl's home, sexually assaulting her, striking her and threatening her.
In the midst of the attack the Grade 11 student had the presence of mind to dial 911, while Bastien's attention was elsewhere. Police responded to the call and arrested Bastien within minutes.
Nikota told Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson that Bastien has a history of sexual deviance, impulsivity, substance abuse and a predilection for violence.
"He has an utter lack of empathy, an utter lack of understanding of the enormity of his conduct. He has no understanding that he could permanently scar these women's lives."
Nikota recapped the series of sexual crimes that recur in his criminal record, many of them committed shortly after being released from prison. "This is an individual who shows violent antisocial disposition. It is part and parcel of his soul, it would seem."
Bastien's lawyer Brian Dube said his client should not be declared a dangerous offender and should instead be sentenced to six years for the sexual assault.
"The number one thing, I think, is whether Mr. Bastien's underlying disorders are treatable or not treatable," said Dube.
He recalled a brief time when Bastien was being held at the Ontario Regional Treatment Centre in Kingston when his behaviour was kept under control.Dube recounted how Bastien was struck by a car at the age of five and suffered serious head trauma.
He referred to a number of other cases where people were declared dangerous offenders who were extremely clever, cunning, manipulative and evil. Dube said Bastien doesn't fall into that category because of his diminished mental capacity. "It's really a punishment of last resort."
(Update 11-21-09) Bastien, the self-described "rape hound," was put away indefinately by Canadian Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson on Wednesday, November 18. In Canada, dangerous offenders are detained indefinately, with review at the 7 year point and every two years thereafter. According to Justice Patterson, “There is a high likelihood that Mr. Bastien will not contain his sexual urges and will reoffend- There is a substantial permanent risk to the community.”
During 37 days of testimony over 21 months, Patterson heard from psychiatrist after psychiatrist who said Bastien suffers from mental illness, sexual deviancy and drug dependency. He attacks even when chemically castrated and his crimes show a troubling pattern of increasingly violent behaviour toward women. Patterson concluded Bastien, who suffered a head injury as a child and has a low IQ, needs 24-hour supervision and can’t be managed in the community.
Bastien has racked up 43 criminal convictions. In the past 15 years, he has had only one day of freedom, being on probation, in jail or in a psychiatric hospital for his entire adult life. Every time he is released from custody, he commits a new crime, often within hours.
A mother was attacked in a downtown Windsor, ON parking lot on the first day of her new job March 29, 1999. She had finished working when Bastien knocked her to the ground and groped her through her underwear. She escaped only because she punched Bastien in the head. She did it because “You think you’re going to get raped. You’re going to die. All I could think was who’s going to take care of my children.”
On Oct. 10, 2000, in Toronto, on the very day he was released from custody for the parking garage attack, Bastien grabbed a woman on the street, put her in a headlock and tossed her into a concrete flowerpot. Minutes before the unprovoked attack, Bastien had been in a Business Depot store, groping female customers on the buttocks.
Three weeks to the day of his release from Millbrook prison where he was in custody for the Toronto attack, Bastien was back in Windsor. He attacked three women in and around the same casino parking garage where he attacked his first victim two years earlier. He grabbed one woman’s breasts, simulated intercourse with a second woman and knocked a third to the ground, shoving his hands down her pants. He made himself out to be the victim, because the third woman bit his fingers when he forced them into her mouth.
Bastien was denied parole twice after bragging about his rape fantasies of pulling female guards through his prison cell. After he was released, he tried to grope a woman caseworker assigned to help him. May 5, 2006 marked the last day of freddom for Bastien, as he showed up, naked from the waist down in a teen girl's home. He followed her to her bedroom and beat her. She called 911, which recorded the attack, including the girl's screams.
“He has chosen to carry out increasingly violent offences against women. There is no other way to protect the public but a dangerous offender designation,” said Assistant Crown Attorney Gary Nikota.
The first parking lot victim, who still fears going alone to lots, said that “It breaks my heart that it happened over and over again. If they don’t keep him locked up, he’ll do this again and again, woman after woman.”
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Rapist considered dangerous offender in Canada
Michele Henry Crime Reporter Toronto Star
The sister of a man declared a dangerous offender yesterday has a different view of the person who committed a long list of crimes that include raping a 15-year-old girl, crushing a woman's nose and stabbing a cab driver. She says her brother is treatable and "fixable."
Bette Pilgrim said the justice system has failed Jason John Wayne Pilgrim, 33, because such a designation means that he will probably never get the treatment he needs. "I feel the judge took away something," she said, outside a University Ave. courthouse. "I believe my brother is fixable. The judge was unfair."
Pilgrim, a designated psychopath with dark, slicked-back hair that covers a Maple Leaf tattoo on his head, stared at his sister and mother after Justice Denise Bellamy sentenced him to an indeterminate period of imprisonment.
"This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make," Bellamy said.
"It's not to punish him. ... But to protect the public ... from his future violence."
Calling him "extraordinarily" dangerous, Bellamy wrote in her 43-page judgment that she does not believe Pilgrim can be rehabilitated. Pilgrim's list of convictions extends back 20 years and includes violent robberies, break and enters, drug possession, sexual assault, and numerous other assaults against inmates, his spouse, a subsequent girlfriend and a taxi driver.
Christopher Avery, Pilgrim's defence lawyer, said yesterday that with this designation the court has deemed his client a write-off. Instead, he should be declared a long-term offender, Avery said, which would have kept Pilgrim in custody and under the control of Corrections Canada for up to 25 years. With a release date in sight, Avery said, his client would have gotten treatment, such as anger management, which he has never received.
Dangerous offenders and others serving life sentences are the lowest priority for treatment programs, Avery said.
One of 14 siblings – some have died and the remaining have criminal records – Pilgrim had a troubled childhood. With a father who allegedly sexually abused four of his seven sisters, he also witnessed his older brother sexually assault another sibling. Pilgrim may himself have been the victim of such abuse.
After the proceedings yesterday, Bette and mother Sadie Pilgrim, 72, paced outside the courtroom until they met with Pilgrim briefly.
"He's my brother and I love him," Bette said.
The sister of a man declared a dangerous offender yesterday has a different view of the person who committed a long list of crimes that include raping a 15-year-old girl, crushing a woman's nose and stabbing a cab driver. She says her brother is treatable and "fixable."
Bette Pilgrim said the justice system has failed Jason John Wayne Pilgrim, 33, because such a designation means that he will probably never get the treatment he needs. "I feel the judge took away something," she said, outside a University Ave. courthouse. "I believe my brother is fixable. The judge was unfair."
Pilgrim, a designated psychopath with dark, slicked-back hair that covers a Maple Leaf tattoo on his head, stared at his sister and mother after Justice Denise Bellamy sentenced him to an indeterminate period of imprisonment.
"This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make," Bellamy said.
"It's not to punish him. ... But to protect the public ... from his future violence."
Calling him "extraordinarily" dangerous, Bellamy wrote in her 43-page judgment that she does not believe Pilgrim can be rehabilitated. Pilgrim's list of convictions extends back 20 years and includes violent robberies, break and enters, drug possession, sexual assault, and numerous other assaults against inmates, his spouse, a subsequent girlfriend and a taxi driver.
Christopher Avery, Pilgrim's defence lawyer, said yesterday that with this designation the court has deemed his client a write-off. Instead, he should be declared a long-term offender, Avery said, which would have kept Pilgrim in custody and under the control of Corrections Canada for up to 25 years. With a release date in sight, Avery said, his client would have gotten treatment, such as anger management, which he has never received.
Dangerous offenders and others serving life sentences are the lowest priority for treatment programs, Avery said.
One of 14 siblings – some have died and the remaining have criminal records – Pilgrim had a troubled childhood. With a father who allegedly sexually abused four of his seven sisters, he also witnessed his older brother sexually assault another sibling. Pilgrim may himself have been the victim of such abuse.
After the proceedings yesterday, Bette and mother Sadie Pilgrim, 72, paced outside the courtroom until they met with Pilgrim briefly.
"He's my brother and I love him," Bette said.
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