Sex offender told parole board he should not be released

Just before his last two parole board hearings, a man who the Crown argues should be declared a dangerous offendersaid he was going to tell the board he shouldn't be released because he's still a danger to society.

Cody Durocher has been convicted of multiple sexual assaults, the most recent being an attack on a girl in Hay River in 2014. He's currently serving time at the Bowden Institution a medium-security prison in Alberta for a previous sexual assault.

His institutional parole officer was the first witness to testify at Durocher's dangerous offender hearing, which began in Yellowknife on Monday.

Durocher called himself 'high risk'

Matthew Kennedy has been working with33-year-old Durocher at the prison for more than three years. He said, prior to parole board hearings in 2015 and last year, Durocher advised him he was going to tell the board he was at high risk of committingmore crimes if released.

In his 10 years of working in prisons, Kennedy said Durocher is the onlyinmate he's dealt with who has told the parole board he shouldn't be released.

Kennedy said that, prior to the 2017 parole board hearing, Durocher was confident his conviction for sexually assaulting the Hay River girl would be overturned, and that, as a result, the Crown's dangerous offender application would collapse.

The sentence he's now serving expires next May.

'Greater rate' of institutional charges

Dressed in a blue T-shirt and jeans, with numerous tattoos covering his forearms and the backs of his hands, Durocher sat beside his lawyer taking notes and listening as Kennedy testified.

While at the Bowden Institution, Durocher enrolled in sex offender and aboriginal healing programs, but became disruptive in both and then dropped out, said Kennedy.

"In general, it hasn't been positive," said Kennedy of Durocher's time there. "He's received institutional charges at a greater rate than the average offender."

Almost all of the administrative penalties Durocher faced at the Alberta prison were related to tattooing, which is not allowed in prisons because of the danger of infection.

Kennedy said Durocher"doesn't show any emotion at all when discussing his offences, but gets extremely emotional when discussing tattooing."

Crown to call 9 witnesses

Seven months ago, Durocher was caught with a tattoo gun and needle. He tried to break it up and flush it down the toilet before guards got it. Kennedy said when he tried to talk to Durocher about it, he became angry.

"He hollered back he doesn't need another lecture on tattooing," said Kennedy."He said he'd never stop tattooing; he'd just get better at hiding it."

Durocher is now re-enrolled in a new high-intensity sex offender program at the Bowden Institution. The program is on pause while he is in Yellowknife this week for his dangerous offender hearing.

Crown prosecutor Annie Piche advised the judge at the beginning of Monday's proceedings that she intends to call nine witnesses, including two experts, a psychologist and a psychiatrist who examined Durocher for the hearing.

They're expected to testify Tuesday and Wednesday. The hearing is scheduled for five days this week, and then resumes in September.