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Child molester's hearing begins

Katherine Hudson
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, May 11, 2011

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A 35-year-old Yellowknife man would be at a "high risk" to re-offend sexually unless numerous strict conditions were in place in the community, a pyschiatrist told the Supreme Court on Monday.

Bobby Kudlak, who pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault last June and has a similar conviction already on his record, is the subject of a 10-day dangerous offender application hearing.

Dangerous offender applications are normally sought by the Crown when an offender with a history of sexual or violent crimes is believed to be a high risk to re-offend. If deemed a dangerous offender, the person can be incarcerated indefinitely. A possible alternative for Kudlak, which the defence is arguing for, would be long-term offender status. It involves up to 10 years of federal supervision in the community.

Earlier this week, Crown prosecutor Janice Walsh called Dr. Scott Woodside, a Toronto-based psychiatrist, as an expert witness. Woodside said he had interviewed Kudlak for close to eight-and-a-half hours and had written a 59-page report of his findings.

Kudlak underwent a multitude of psychopathic tests diagnosing him as someone who prefers either prepubescent or adolescent children, specifically girls between the ages of 10 and 13.

According to Woodside, Kudlak is severely alcohol dependent, has abused cocaine, meets the criteria for anti-social personality disorder, is cognitively delayed -- potentially due to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder -- and does not have much empathy for other individuals.

"He was not the most reliable of historians," said Woodside of his interviews with Kudlak, stating the pedophile said his upbringing was "OK," minimizing the negative impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family in Cambridge Bay surrounded by physical and substance abuse.

"He said he has friends, when in reality he's very alone and isolated," said Woodside.

Defence lawyer Thomas Boyd said his client "needs considerable supports, inputs and supervision" in place or else his risk to the community would be elevated.

Boyd said accommodation in a group home or a halfway house with other sexual offenders, along with 24-hour supervision and alcohol- and and testosterone-suppressing medication, would mean "the individual would not be abandoned" in a correctional facility.

According to the agreed facts, in July 2009, Kudlak sexually assaulted a young girl while she was playing hide-and-go-seek with her friends at the Yellowknife Public Library. The girl was hiding under a large bean bag when she felt something touching her leg and then her vaginal area. She kicked at what turned out to be a man's arm and then saw a "very short male" walk away quickly. Kudlak was later identified as the culprit by another girl who had been playing the game. The librarian recognized him as well.

The other incident occurred in 2005 when Kudlak touched the private parts of a 10-year-old girl in her home one morning. Kudlak, a friend of the girl's father, often slept at the home when he had no other place to live.

The latter incident was reported to police years after the fact, while Kudlak was serving eight months in jail for a June 6, 2008, incident where he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl at Wal-Mart.

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