MANITOBA justice officials had no idea their "star" witness in a sex-assault case was actually a career criminal when they struck a controversial plea bargain that spared him jail for impregnating a mentally disabled Winnipeg woman.
Kenneth Allan, 70, appeared to hit the legal jackpot last year when he admitted to his crime and left court with a conditional sentence.
Justice officials explained their deal with Allan on the grounds they needed him to testify against his co-accused, the victim's former respite worker who allegedly coerced the victim, who has the mental capacity of a six-year-old, into the sexual relationship.
They also cited Allan's complete lack of a prior criminal record as the basis for such a lenient sentence.
But now the plea bargain -- and Allan's credibility -- have been rocked with the revelation he has had 88 prior convictions in his lifetime.
Crimes
His many crimes -- which occurred between 1954 and 1990 -- have included robbery, assault causing bodily harm, weapons possession, drugs, escaping custody, break-and-enter, theft and an indecent assault against a young woman.
Allan has been given more than 25 years of prison time in his life and served nearly half of it. There have also been four separate parole violations, which landed him back behind bars.
Yet none of this information was apparently known to the Crown when they struck the deal with Allan. That's because he was able to obtain a pardon from the National Parole Board a few years earlier, which wiped his criminal slate clean.
Justice officials only learned of it recently when the parole board, citing Allan's sex assault guilty plea from last year, revoked his pardon and reinstated his entire criminal record.
Crown attorney Dave Mann explained the situation on Wednesday as Allan was called to testify against the ex-respite worker now on trial for sexually assaulting a person with a disability.
An employee with a Vancouver company specializing in pardons told the Free Press Wednesday that obtaining a pardon for more than a handful of crimes is rare.
"I've never seen 88 (offences) ever, in my life, and I've worked on thousands of cases myself," said Jared Church, operations manager for Pardon Services Canada.
"I would say that's very much the exception to the rule."
Allan told court he was shocked when the young woman and her respite worker first came to his home in 2001 on the premise of doing some cleaning. He had previously dated the accused.
"I walked into the bedroom and both of them were in bed. They were naked. (The accused) was laying on top of (the victim)," said Allan.
He said the accused invited him to join them in bed and then forced the victim to begin fondling him. That led to sexual intercourse.
He paid the accused $50 before the victim left, admitting Wednesday it was for both the cleaning and the sex.
Allan said the women returned about a month later for a similar visit. He had sex with the mentally disabled women and paid the respite worker $30, despite the fact they hadn't done any cleaning for him that day.
It was weeks later Allan learned the victim was pregnant, but he remained silent about his relations with her.
Allan claims the accused began blackmailing him, demanding he pay her $800 or she would go to the police with the truth about the pregnancy. He refused.
The victim, now 27, is unable to testify because of her diminished mental capacity. Her mother was the Crown's first witness at trial and described the shock of finding out her daughter was pregnant.
"We had no idea how (her daughter) could have gotten pregnant," said the woman, whose name isn't being published to protect the identity of the victim.
The victim gave birth to a baby boy in March 2002, with the circumstances of the pregnancy still a bizarre mystery.
That changed when an anonymous phone call was made to Winnipeg police in April 2003, claiming Allan was the father of the victim's baby. Police eventually ran a DNA test that confirmed his fatherhood.
www.mikeoncrime.com
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