Dangerous offender

by Brian DuBreuil Posted: Dec 5, 2012 1:12 PM ET Last Updated: Dec 5, 2012 1:12 PM ET

Lloyd Eugene Bailey started attacking and sexually assaulting women when he was 15 years old. He only stopped when he was in jail, and after a serious car accident left Bailey confined to a wheelchair. But they proved to be only temporary setbacks.

Now the Crown is trying to have Bailey, 43, declared a dangerous offender. It's their second try.

The first attempt was in 2002. By that time, Bailey had racked up a string of violent assaults, all against women. Check out this excerpt from a National Parole Board report:

"Going back to 1985 when you were only 15 years old, entering a private dwelling you demanded your female victim go to her bathroom while holding scissors to her throat, and in 1986 you grabbed another victim by the throat. In 1987, you raped another victim five times over. The frequency and nature of these offences portray a pattern of persistent violence."

The only "break in this pattern" came in 1990 when Bailey was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident. He suffered a spinal cord injury and a mild stroke, but by 1996, after extensive rehabilitation Bailey regained enough movement to live independently, to a drive a car, and although he is frequently confined to a wheelchair, he can take some steps with a walker.

That's when the "pattern resumed." Bailey used his wheelchair as a sympathy card, convincing his victims to come to his apartment to help him.

One of his victims was a 12-year-old girl, the daughter of a friend. According to court records, he told her mother the girl was going to babysit overnight for his cousin, but after he got the girl, he drove to his apartment. When the girl fell asleep, she awoke to find Bailey sexually assaulting her. When she tried to get up, Bailey grabbed a pair of scissors, put them to her throat and "told her to be quiet or the scissors would be shoved down her throat."

The girl fought back, they fell to the floor. She managed to make it to the bedroom door slamming it into Bailey's head. That stopped the attack, but after Bailey made it back into his wheelchair he told the girl he would kill her if she told her mother.

Despite this lengthy record, Supreme Court Justice Robert Wright, dismissed the Crown's application to declare Bailey a dangerous offender. Instead, Wright sentenced Bailey to eight years in prison and designated him a long term offender, which meant Bailey would be subject to 10 years of supervision after his release.

In prison, Bailey made no attempt to turn his life around. He repeatedly refused to participate in programs for sex offenders, and every time he was eligible for parole the board rejected his application, saying he was at high risk to re-offend.

Finally, in March, 2008, the parole board had no choice. Bailey had reached his mandatory release date, so the board could only, as per Justice Wright's order, impose a long list of conditions Bailey was to respect while out of prison. They included no drugs, no alcohol, not to be in the presence of females under the age of 18, mandatory psychological counseling, he was to report all dates or intimate relationships with women to his supervisor, and undergo chemical intervention for his sexual urges.

They were conditions few actually believed Bailey would follow. As the parole board noted, almost all his previous crimes occurred while Bailey was subject to one or more court-ordered conditions.

And he didn't. Just months after his release, while living in a half-way house, Bailey brutally attacked a 19-year-old woman.

Bailey was a regular customer at the pizza shop where she was employed. He told her he was a photographer and was looking for swimwear models. He lured her to a Halifax hotel with the promise she would make $1,000.

Once there, Bailey drugged her with beer, then choked her with a shoelace. She fought back, but he kept choking her, threatening to kill her, and then sexually assaulted her with a cucumber.

Now, ten years after that first attempt, the crown is once again trying to convince a judge to declare Bailey a dangerous offender, a designation that would allow officials to keep Bailey in prison as long as he is considered a risk to re-offend.

Crown lawyer Paul Carver chose the diplomatic route when asked if Justice Robert Wright made a mistake ten years ago, when he rejected the crown's first attempt to have Bailey declared a dangerous offender.

"To say whether it was an error, is not something I can comment on", said Carver "obviously given that he went on to commit a serious offense years later shows that he continues to be a risk".

Needless to say, there will be a lot of people watching to see what the court decides this time.

"); gigya.socialize.getProviderShareCounts({ callback:window.printSocialCounts, context: container }); }; window.onSendDone = function (event) { if(event.providers) { var providers = event.providers.split(","); for(i = 0; i

CBC News Navigation

Dangerous offender

Story Social Media

End of Story Social Media

About the Author

Recent Entries