Randall Hopley is too dangerous to release, court told

Randall Hopley, the B.C. man who kidnapped a boy from his Sparwood home, is in the highest possible group of pedophiles to re-offend, according to a forensic psychiatrist.

Hopley, 48, pleaded guilty to abducting Kienan Hebert, 3, and holding him in a cabin at an abandoned mine site for four days before returning him unharmed to the home where he was abducted in September 2011.

At his dangerous offender hearing in Cranbrook Wednesday, Dr. Emlene Murphy said Hopley is in the group of pedophiles most likely to re-offend.

The court heard this was in stark contrast to what Hopley said during an interview last year, after the Crown announced it was proceeding with a dangerous offender application.

Murphy said she reviewed a series of reports done on Hopley, beginning in his teens, when he sexually assaulted young children while he was living in a foster home.

Prosecutors argue Hopley must be declared a dangerous offender, because he can never safely be released from jail.

Whenever he is released, they say, he continues to abuse and thus the public will never be safe while he is out of jail.

Whether Hopley is declared a dangerous offender is crucial in determining whether he can be sentenced to an indefinite prison term.

Earlier this week, excerpts were read out from psychological and psychiatric reports about Hopley's apparent ongoing compulsion to molest children.

Years before he abducted Hebert from a Sparwood home, Hopley was described as a danger to society in a 1985 report by forensic psychologist Dr. William Koch. The court heard Hopley was 17 years old when he assaulted three children at his foster home, and he was sent to prison a few years later for sexually assaulting another five-year-old boy

According to these reports, Hopley is a remorseless sex offender who needs immediate intervention but who refuses to take part in any kind of counselling, said prosecutors.

A week has been set aside for the hearing.