Judge rejects dangerous offender designation

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This article was published 19/02/2010 (5678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He randomly selected his vulnerable victims, speaking openly about fantasies of killing them. He altered his physical appearance, used a bogus name and spoke with a fake southern drawl. He walked around Winnipeg carrying a backpack filled with ligatures and women’s underwear as “trophies.”

But because the Crown’s bid to declare him a dangerous offender failed, Kevin Steppan will be back on the streets of Winnipeg before the end of the year.

On Thursday, provincial court Judge Linda Giesbrecht rejected the Crown’s application to have Steppan declared a dangerous offender — a move that would have carried an indefinite prison term. Instead, she sentenced Steppan to nine months in jail, in addition to four-and-a-half years of pre-trial custody, and placed him on 10 years of supervised probation with strict conditions as part of a long-term offender designation.

Steppan, 25, already had a history of sex crimes when he targeted two young women in 2005. The victims — who worked in the sex trade — were choked with a rope and physically and sexually assaulted by the banks of the Assiniboine River. Steppan later admitted to police he thought about killing both of them. He also pleaded guilty to making approximately 50 sexually obscene phone calls from jail to a female defence lawyer.

“What you did to these two women was terrible. What you wanted to do was even worse,” Giesbrecht said.

She said Steppan fits the criteria for a dangerous offender, but believes he deserves another shot at turning his troubled life around. She heard from numerous expert witnesses, prison and probation officials during a hearing that began last year and was adjourned on several occasions.

“A sentence in a federal institution is not needed at this point for the protection of the public in this case. Nor is such a sentence required at this time to properly reflect the other relevant principles of sentencing. In my view, imposing such a sentence at this time would result in a total sentence that is unfit and unjust,” said Giesbrecht.

She noted Steppan is still young and has several people now supporting him with a treatment plan that is the “gold standard” and will help deal with his tragic upbringing.

“His family background can generally be characterized as dysfunctional, chaotic and dominated by abuse and neglect,” said Giesbrecht.

The Crown was trying to invoke the rarely used section of the Criminal Code that allows for an indeterminate sentence on the grounds Steppan poses an uncontrollable risk to society. He is believed to be one of the youngest offenders in Canadian history to face such a designation. Only a handful of Manitobans have ever been designated dangerous offenders.

Dr. Terry Nicholaichuk, a prominent psychologist from Saskatchewan, was called to testify on behalf of Steppan. He said the accused appears to have a serious “personality disorder” and has a long history of behavioural problems, including setting fires, chronic lying and making obscene calls to women. Steppan also has expressed a fondness for choking women as a means of controlling them. Steppan’s main targets tend to be women who work in the sex trade, but he has also expressed desires to attack female guards at Headingley jail.

Joshua Cooney, unit manager for the sex-offender program at Headingley, testified for the Crown Steppan had to be removed from the jail and transferred to Brandon based on his “deviant” fantasies. Steppan has also become combative with other inmates after they talked about the women because he is “jealous,” Cooney said.

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