Sex suspect lived close to kids’ park

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This article was published 28/05/2010 (5616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From the front porch of the blue rooming house where Greg Glen Hope lived for the last month, you can hear the sound of children laughing.

The park where a six-year-old girl was abducted and sexually assaulted sits directly across the narrow Langside Street from the house.

On Thursday morning, police announced they had arrested Hope, 34, and charged him with the crime that rocked the West End neighbourhood this week. It is alleged the suspect had attempted to befriend the child prior to the incident, police said.

Rooming house tenant Robert E. Williams was asleep on Sunday night when the attack occured. He never would have guessed his neighbour would soon become an accused child molester, he said.

"I’m shocked, because we didn’t know his background," Williams said. "He sounded like a nice, quiet guy to me."

Residents said that Hope moved into a room on the house’s third floor about a month ago, after being given a key by the suite’s former tenant. He had recently been released from prison on a December 2009 break-and-enter conviction, although his new neighbours didn’t know that.

Instead, Williams said, Hope raised little attention around the building. Hope "liked a couple of drinks after work," Williams said, and sometimes talked about his work for a landscaping company and how he hoped to get into university in September.

Williams, who has lived in the house for seven years, said he never saw Hope near the park.

"I was really shocked. He didn’t seem to me like that type. But I’ve got a 20-year-old daughter, and if anyone did that to her… well, whatever they give him, this guy should get double that," Williams said, adding that he hopes to see better lighting installed in the area to help deter crime.

Even more disturbing for some residents was learning that, if Hope had received the sentence for the break-and-enter charge the Crown attorney sought, he would have still been behind bars the night he allegedly lured the girl away from the park. He was sentenced to six months in prison, and released earlier this spring.

"That’s because the justice system sucks," said another man near the rooming house. "If he ever gets out and comes back here, if I ever see him again, me and my friends, about 15 of ’em, we’re gonna stomp him. That’s what happens when you mess with kids."

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca