By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

Next step looming in potential dangerous offender application for Coaldale man

Aug 13, 2018 | 12:08 PM

LETHBRIDGE – The forensic assessment and report is nearly complete for a 34-year-old Coaldale man to help determine whether he should be designated a dangerous offender.

The Crown prosecutor noted that the report for Trevor Pritchard is due by the end of business on Tuesday, Aug. 14. From the completion of the report, the Crown will have seven days to decide if they will seek the consent of the Attorney General of Alberta to launch a dangerous offender application. The matter was then adjourned to Aug. 27.

The assessment was ordered for Pritchard in April, after he pleaded guilty to luring and sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl – his fourth conviction for sexually assaulting adolescent girls – to examine his risk level and providing insight into whether he can be given a regular sentence or designated either a long-term or dangerous offender.

A long-term offender designation entails conditions that allow authorities to monitor an offender after their release from custody for a maximum of 10-years, similar to a probation order. A dangerous offender designation on the other hand, allows for an offender to receive an indeterminate term of imprisonment in a penitentiary, with parole ineligibility for seven-years.

Following Pritchard’s guilty pleas, an agreed statement of facts was provided to the court by the Crown and defence.

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It revealed that Pritchard had met the victim on Facebook and that they had been communication via text message. On Jan. 17, 2017, she agreed to meet him in person, believing that he would take her to a job interview. Pritchard instead took the girl to his home in Coaldale, told her, “The interview was not going to happen,” then forced her to participate in various sexual acts. After, he drove her home and said he would kill her if she told anyone.

The girl told her mother about what had happened hours later, and after speaking to police, she was taken to the Chinook Regional Hospital for a sexual assault examination.

Another trial is still scheduled for this coming November, relating to two alleged victims who came forward after police charged Pritchard in relation to the 15-year-old victim. He faces two counts of sexual assault, two counts of child luring, and one count of possession of child pornography in that case.