Crown wants dangerous offender status for Penticton man | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Crown wants dangerous offender status for Penticton man

Crown officials want David Bobbitt declared a dangerous offender. Bobbitt has pled guilty to sexually assaulting and beating a young Penticton woman in the summer of 2011.

PENTICTON - David Wesley Bobbitt could be in jail until the day he dies if Crown prosecutors get him declared him a dangerous offender, one of the harshest punishments available in the Canadian justice system handed out to the likes of serial killer Paul Bernardo and Vancouver rapist Dawson Davidson.

Bobbitt was convicted in April to sexually assaulting and beating a young Penticton woman in the summer of 2011. His victim, 22 years old at the time, and her infant son visited Dave's Second Hand Store on Ellis Street on July 30, where Bobbitt worked. He took the woman prisoner and over the course of nearly a dozen hours beat and sexually assaulted her in front of her toddler.

He pled guilty in April 2013 to aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, assault with a weapon, two counts of unlawful confinement and two counts of making threats.

On Monday, Crown prosecutors Vern Frolick and Deb Drissell continued proceedings to have Bobbitt declared a dangerous offender. If they are successful Bobbitt can be given an indeterminate sentence which means life in prison with almost no chance of parole.

The dangerous offender designation is imposed on some of Canada's most violent criminals and sexual predators with Bernardo being a famous example. The term of dangerous offender is given if the justice system believes the convicted presents a continued threat to the public even after being released. 

Canada has 486 inmates with dangerous offender status who are actively serving indeterminate sentences across the country. Of those, 91 of them are doing time in B.C. according to 2012 statistics from Public Safety Canada.

If the Crown gets the go-ahead to pursue dangerous offender status from the Attorney General's office there'll be two options. One is to put Bobbitt into prison for life. The other would be a lesser sentence if there is a reasonable expectation Bobbitt will not re-offend.

To contact a reporter for this story, to send photos or videos, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065, tweet @shannonquesnel1 or @InfoNewsPentict

News from © iNFOnews, 2013
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