(This column was published in the North Shore News on July 16, 2003)
Legal system 'soft' on sex offenders
By Leo Knight
In a city already grief-stricken over the shocking brutality of the murder and dismemberment of 10-year-old Holly Jones, Corrections Canada tried to place a career pedophile in a halfway house just blocks away from where she lived.
While that seems unbelievable to you and me, it wasn't Corrections Canada that halted the process following the community outrage and the attending media firestorm. Not at all.
It was the offender himself, Walter Jacobson, who decided that perhaps he should go back to prison where he was safer with the fruits, freaks, wackos and assorted nutcases who were so screwed up no liberal judge would even give them a conditional sentence.
On the surface of things, one has to wonder what would ever possess Corrections Canada to even consider sending a guy like Jacobson with a lifelong history of sex offences to a neighbourhood still reeling from the little girl's brutal killing.
But then, that sort of logical thinking is reserved for me and thee, not the fuzzy-headed hand-wringers at Corrections Canada who think that all cons can be rehabilitated with enough counselling and group hugs.
The practical reality is that most cons cannot and will not be rehabilitated in this lifetime or the next, any more than Jacobson has been rehabilitated in the 40 or so other times he was in the justice system on a sexual assault beef.
I've written a considerable amount about sex offenders in general and pedophiles in particular, and how they continually seem to get a free ride through the justice system.
I don't get it, I really don't.
Corrections Canada's own stats show that pedophiles have the highest percentage of recidivism.
Duh.
On the weekend that salient fact was underlined on television news broadcast when a story aired about Gerard Belleveau, a 66-year-old little man with a history of the most despicable crimes you can imagine.
Belleveau was let out by the perpetually wrong staff at Corrections Canada. Vancouver Police Department (VPD) arrested him for trying to lure two pre-teen girls into his apartment by offering them money, a latter day version of the "Candy, little girl?" come-on, it seems.
But the system continues to be soft on these creeps. Crown Counsel refused to approve the charges recommended by police.
This is yet another example of how the charge approval system as it is practiced in this province favours criminals, unlike some other jurisdictions in the country.
But that's another discussion.
In the Belleveau case, VPD had to use what we used to call "The Ways and Means Act" to get him off the streets to protect the children of Vancouver. Because, God knows, neither Corrections nor the Crown would do their duty. Belleveau had conditions he wasn't to breach.
Yeah, right. Well to no one's great shock, except the perpetually naive Corrections staff, he did. VPD arrested him on Sunday for drinking alcohol. They required him to take a breathalyser and he blew almost twice the legal limit. Not bad for a guy whose conditions of release stated he was to abstain from drinking alcohol.
In doing so, VPD forced the system to deal with its own stupidity. And good on them.
Both Belleveau and Jacobson have been through the system time and again. They have had all the counselling for their disgusting predilections Corrections Canada can muster. And I might add, they have failed again and again.
But what happens to those who are on their first few rides on the judicial merry-go-round?
Let's look at the case of North Vancouver convicted sex offender Barmak Kasraei, a 23-year-old man with an apparent taste for sex with pre-adolescent boys.
In June 2002, Kasraei targeted a 13-year-old boy who lived near him.
After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to contact the boy, Kasraei ingratiated himself at the boy's home and pretended to be a child- care worker.
He convinced the boy's mom to go for some juice and gave her $10 for the purchase.
While she was away on the fool's errand, he sexually assaulted the boy.
He was eventually caught by the North Vancouver RCMP and pleaded guilty in April.
As a result of that plea, a number of contributing circumstances were not explained to the judge hearing the case, with, one presumes, the agreement of the Crown prosecutor.
The bottom line is that this pedophiliac sexual predator got a conditional sentence of 12 months and a further probation period of six months.
As a result of that sentence, significantly less than federal time, there was no forced treatment imposed.
You see, it is only when a sentence of two years or more is imposed that the offender can be forced to take counselling.
The sexual predator is free among us with only some conditions, which will undoubtedly be ignored, standing between him and his next offence.
The easy ride continues.
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