Sex Offender Freed by Court, Charged Again
Assaults in Alberta: Parole ruling calls Ducap 'untreated sexual delinquent'
By Francine Dubé
Originally published in the National Post, July 25, 2001
A man charged with sexually assaulting three young women in Alberta last week—one of them a 15-year-old girl—was once sentenced to life in prison, but walked free last summer after the sentence was reduced on appeal.
Alain Ducap, 41, a violent career criminal, received the maximum life sentence for a robbery in Quebec in 1989, during which he forced a pregnant woman to perform oral sex on him.
That sentence was reduced on appeal in 1992, leaving Ducap a free man as of July, 2000.
He was first released on day parole in Winnipeg in December, 1999, despite the fact he had not participated in any programs while in prison to address his problems of sexual aggression.
Instead, he completed a course called Breaking Barriers, to help him reintegrate into society, and another called Breath of Hope, which was a suicide prevention program.
"You thus remain an untreated sexual delinquent," reads the day-parole ruling, dated Dec. 1, 1999. Psychological counselling for his sexual deviancy was, however, made a condition of his release.
Last summer, after serving two-thirds of his sentence, Ducap was released in his hometown of Montreal. He stopped reporting to his parole officer in November.
He was arrested last weekend at the Greyhound bus station in Brandon, Man., and charged on Monday with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in Calgary on July 20. Officers found a sawed-off shotgun in his knapsack.
Yesterday, Edmonton police charged him with two counts of aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement, and uttering death threats in connection with an attack on two women, ages 19 and 20, at the University of Alberta. The attack occurred four days prior to the Calgary attack. The charges carry a life sentence.
Ducap has a criminal record stretching back to 1978. He was on a day pass from prison when he escaped in January, 1989, and assaulted the pregnant woman during a robbery.
A day later, Ducap held his former parole officer hostage for two hours before the woman persuaded him to turn himself in to Ottawa police.
In 1990, Quebec Court Judge Jules Barriere sentenced Ducap to the maximum 14 years in prison for the sexual assault on the pregnant woman, and life for the robbery committed during the sexual assault. He said at the time that when legislators decided there should be stiff maximum sentences for some crimes, they had in mind criminals like Ducap.
The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that the life sentence for the $1,000 robbery was too severe. It was reduced to seven years.
The Correctional Service of Canada can apply to have prisoners detained even after they have served two-thirds of their sentence, but this was not done in Ducap's case.
"The case was reviewed but it wasn't referred because all the criteria weren't met," said Guy Campeau, a spokesman for the CSC.
