Trevor Pritchard. (Supplied by Coaldale RCMP)

By David Opinko

Dangerous offender hearing continues for Coaldale man

Aug 25, 2020 | 1:05 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Crown prosecutors are seeking to have Trevor Pritchard, 35, held in custody indefinitely.

He was found guilty of sexual assault, luring, and child pornography in January 2019, and has similar convictions in 2004, 2009, and 2010.

This week marks just one section of a hearing in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench that could see Pritchard designated as a dangerous offender.

That designation, if declared, would mean that he would continue to be a high risk to society even after his sentence has concluded and should not be released back into society.

The hearing began earlier this year but parts of it were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first three days of this week are being used for a section of the hearing and it is scheduled to resume in December.

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Pritchard has been held at Bowden Institution for the majority of the time since his arrest in 2017.

In December 2018, while still awaiting the verdict for his trial, a corrections officer found a bag in Pritchard’s bed that contained 80 pages of mostly handwritten letters. They included everything from sexual letters to the underaged girls he had previously communicated with, threats, anti-woman rants, a story he was working on that contains many graphically-sexual details, and seemingly-random musings.

Justice Johnna Kubik deemed this as being admissible evidence for the sentencing hearing.

Then on Tuesday morning, court heard from Mai Jaing, the parole officer assigned to Pritchard at Bowden.

He says the current recommendation made to the Parole Board of Canada is to detain Pritchard past his statutory release date. That decision, however, will be made by the board itself.

Pritchard’s statutory release date is May 18, 2021.

Jaing’s overall assessment of Pritchard to this point is that he is a “medium-risk” offender, but under the personal emotional category of his Dynamic Factors Summary, Pritchard has a “high need for improvement.”

Pritchard is currently on the waiting list for the High-Intensity Sex Offender Program, which utilizes a form of group counselling. The program was put on hold earlier this year due to the pandemic but reopened this month.

It is not clear at this point when he might be able to partake in the High-Intensity Sex Offender Program.

The crown hopes to use all of these factors to convince the judge that Pritchard is better off remaining in jail where he can get support.