A man who was convicted of sexually assaulting a Red Deer senior citizen was ordered to undergo a 60-day psychiatric assessment in Red Deer court today.
Jesse Peter Toews, 26, of Red Deer will return to court in mid-April. Justice Monica Bast made the order in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench today.
Toews was convicted in January of sexually assaulting a 77-year-old woman on July 29, 2009, on a secluded path northwest of 67th Street and Gaetz Avenue in Red Deer.
During the judge-alone trial, the woman, now 79, said she remembered asking for God’s help when her attacker grabbed her from behind and put a hand over her mouth.
The woman never saw her attacker’s face.
She managed to get to the Save-On store bleeding heavily from a cut to her head.
A key piece of Crown evidence was that DNA from semen found on the clothes of the victim was about 12 billion to one that it would have belonged to anyone else but Toews.
Justice Bast acquitted Toews of robbery and unlawful confinement following the trial.
Crown prosecutor Anders Quist had told Bast earlier he intends to make application to have Toews, who has about two dozen convictions, declared a dangerous or long-term offender.
If he is declared a long-term offender, Toews faces a lengthy period of intensive supervision in the community, immediately following a fixed prison term. If declared a dangerous offender Toews would be in jail indefinitely.