Sally MacDonald
Townsman Staff
Sparwood child abductor Randall Hopley will have a dangerous offender hearing in Cranbrook Supreme Court starting on October 7.
Hopley pleaded guilty last March to abduction of a child under 14, and break and enter with the intent to commit an offence.
The charges stem from the September 2011 abduction of then-three-year-old Kienan Hebert from his bed in his parents' home in Sparwood.
An amber alert was issued on September 7, 2011 when his parents woke up and released their young son was missing. The alert said that the little boy had been wearing nothing but Scooby Doo boxer shorts when he disappeared.
After an intensive search operation, Kienan was returned to his home unharmed in the middle of the night by his abductor four days later.
On September 13, 2011, a police sniffer dog tracked Hopley to a gravel pit in Crowsnest Lake, Alberta, near the cabin where he had kept Kienan.
Hopley's sentencing hearing began last July. Before Justice Heather Holmes, the court heard that Hopley chose the Hebert home because he noticed toys in the yard and found the front door unlocked.
He also said that he returned Kienan four days later because the child asked to go home.
Last August, Crown prosecutor Lynall Doerksen asked that the court consider Hopley for dangerous offender status.
This rarely used criminal designation sets apart offenders of violent or sexual offences who are deemed likely to reoffend and whose release is considered a threat to society.
Hopley has remained in custody since August pending the dangerous offender hearing, a continuation of the sentencing hearing that began last July.
On Monday, June 17, Crown counsel and Hopley's defense counsel William Thorne agreed that the hearing could be held starting on October 7, 2013, in Cranbrook.
Hopley did not appear in person or via video for the brief matter.