B.C. sex offender Randall Hopley gets another 18 months in jail after going on run

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia judge has ordered convicted sex offender Randall Hopley to spend another 18 months in jail after he pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of his long-term supervision order on two occasions in 2022 and 2023.

Judge Jennifer Oulton handed Hopley a sentence of 29 months in jail with 11 months’ credit for time served during a provincial court hearing in Vancouver.

She says the 58-year-old went missing for 10 days after leaving his halfway house in the city’s Downtown Eastside and cutting off his ankle monitor last November.

Hopley pleaded guilty to that breach last month, and Oulton says his admission and the fact he was caught after showing up at a police station were mitigating factors.

Oulton says Hopley also pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of his 10-year supervision order by being in the presence of children under the age of 16 in November 2022.

Hopley was released under the order’s conditions in 2018 after completing a six-year prison term for the 2011 abduction of a three-year-old boy in southeastern B.C.

He had been living in the Vancouver halfway house when he was arrested for violating the order by visiting a library and getting too close to children.

He was on bail for that charge when he disappeared last November and pleaded guilty to a third charge of failing to appear for that scheduled trial date.

Oulton gave Hopley 1.5 days’ credit for each of the 333 days he spent in custody since early 2023.

She says the Crown wanted Hopley to spend a further 37 months in jail, while his defence sought a 13-month sentence taking into account time served.

The judge said Hopley’s criminal record also includes a conviction in the 1985 sexual assault of a child, for which he was sentenced to two years in jail and three years of probation when he was 19 years old.

Oulton read from a 2013 summary by a previous judge who dealt with Hopley, saying he showed a “troubling inability to control his sexual offending against younger children, mostly boys,” in his later youth and early adulthood.

She said a psychiatrist’s report indicated he had committed three such offences over the course of a year when he was 16 and 17.

That remark prompted an outburst from Hopley,. “I want to stop you. There’s not three sexual assaults, there’s only two,” he said.

Hopley told the judge she “got it wrong.”

Oulton continued after telling Hopley there were remedies if the facts were incorrect.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2024.

The Canadian Press