KAMLOOPS, B.C. - A pedophile's apartment in Kamloops, B.C., was filled with toys, a probation officer and a Mountie have told the man's dangerous offender hearing.

David Jennings, 50, is facing the potential of an indefinite sentence.

Bernice Hammett, Jennings’ probation officer between July 2011 and June 2012, testified she visited his home and saw several stuffed toys propped up on the backs of chairs and ledges.

"There was a lot of stuffed animals and he was preoccupied with that type of material — just little trinkets and things,” Hammett said.

“Mr. Jennings was childlike in his interests," she told provincial court.

Hammett said Jennings told her he enjoyed sleeping with his stuffed toys because he was lonely.

“Mr. Jennings asked me if it was normal to sleep with a stuffed animal and I said that would be fine if it made him feel comfortable,” she said.

“I don’t know if normal is the right word here, but we just had these discussions because he was feeling lonely.”

An RCMP investigator with the major crimes section also described a similar scene at a different home where Jennings lived in 2009.

Cpl. Mark Goodall said he interviewed Jennings in his bedroom in April that year after a complaint about the man possibly violating his probation by being around children.

“There were stuffed animals everywhere — on the bed, the shelf, the table,” Goodall said.

“He had a shelf that had a lot of cartoon kid videos. It looked like a child’s bedroom.”

Jennings was found guilty last year of one count of sexual interference of a person under 16, his most recent conviction.

In that case, he was staying with a family when he entered the bedroom of an eight-year-old boy and fondled his genitals.

He was identified a year later when the boy was in a social worker’s office and spotted a newspaper clipping on the wall with Jennings’ mug shot and a public warning from B.C. Corrections.

The boy pointed out the picture showing “Uncle Dave.”

He told police that "Uncle Dave" had told him not to tell anyone and he wouldn’t get hurt.

Jennings was the subject of a rare public warning from B.C. Corrections in October 2011.

At the time, officials said Jennings would be living in Kamloops and was a high risk to commit sexual offences.

In June 2012, before the incident involving the eight-year-old boy came to light, Mounties arrested Jennings following an incident outside a pizza chain, where he allegedly tried to pick up a 14-year-old girl.

Police said then that after being rebuffed, Jennings went to a nearby bank and gave a three-year-old girl a stuffed animal.

He was arrested six days later.

It was his third such breach in less than a year.

In the 1990s, Jennings was convicted in Alberta of sexually abusing two children — a four-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy.

He has a lengthy criminal history in Kamloops as well and was convicted of a sex offence involving a nine-year-old girl in 1999.

Between 2003 and 2006, Jennings racked up six breach convictions. In 2003, he was also convicted of assaulting a police officer and obstructing a police officer.

Court has heard Jennings was diagnosed with pedophilia non-exclusive type, meaning he is sexually attracted to boys and girls. (Kamloops This Week)

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014