Jesse Peter Toews is a dangerous psychopath who poses a high risk to public safety and should therefore remain in prison until he no longer poses such a threat, Justice Monica Bast ruled in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday.
Bast had convicted Toews, 28, in January of 2011 for attacking and sexually assaulting a 77-year-old woman on July 29, 2009 as she walked on a path in the Red Deer neighbourhood of Highland Green.
“The unprovoked attack on the defenseless, vulnerable stranger . . .was savage and cruel,” Bast said in explaining why she determined that Toews “should be considered a psychopath.”
The attack follows a long history of violent outbursts, included in the evidence brought to the court by Crown prosecutors Anders Quist and Charlotte Oxford in their efforts to have Toews declared a dangerous offender.
In outlining a written decision that goes into much greater detail, Bast said Toews’s sentence would swing on whether or not the Crown had proven that he should be declared a dangerous offender, which would mean he could be held in prison indefinitely.
Toews, clean-cut and slender, sat erect in the prisoner’s box with his hands shoved deeply into the front pockets of his white hoodie as Bast explained her decision. Occasionally he glanced from time to time at family members in the public gallery.
The indeterminate sentence does not mean that Toews’s prison term is unlimited, but it does mean he cannot be released as long as he is capable of and likely to commit further violence, she said.
“He stays incarcerated for the period of time that he posses a threat to society,” said Bast.
After more submissions from the Crown prosecutors and from Toews’s lawyer, Arnold Piragoff, Bast said she could not make any orders pertaining putting him into any specific treatment facility, but that she could recommend that Corrections Canada attempt to place him in a program for sex offenders.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com