Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Jul 31/98) - Justice John Vertes has reserved his decision in the dangerous offender application against Irvin George McPherson until September 3.

After a week-long hearing in Fort Simpson, Vertes said he'd need several weeks to further review the case-law submitted by the prosecution and the defence.

McPherson, 37, was charged with break and enter and sexual assault in 1995 and found guilty in 1997. He had 62 convictions on his criminal record at that point and has been remanded in custody for the past 32 months.

During this week's hearing, McPherson was accused of committing sexual assaults against nine victims, seven of whom came forward to testify. Many of them said McPherson threatened or coerced them into not telling the police about the incidents, which purportedly occurred in Fort Simpson over the past 20 years. Some of the women said McPherson repeatedly raped them. The majority of the alleged offences involved alcohol and many occurred while the women were unconscious.

"His action is as callous as they come," said prosecutor Alan Regal, describing an alleged incident where McPherson was said to have kicked a woman in the stomach whom he believed to be pregnant by another man. His inappropriate sexual behavior was said to have begun when he was in elementary school.

"The penalties imposed on him in the past have not deterred him," Regal said.

The court was closed to the public during some of the women's testimonies. Some of those who took the stand requested a screen so they could avoid eye contact with McPherson.

In regard to some incidents, he claimed to have an alibi in his defence, or said he was misidentified. With others he said he couldn't recollect.

The psychiatrists who testified agreed that McPherson is a psychopath. The defence psychiatrist, Robert Dickey, recommended chemical castration as a viable treatment. In conjunction with the aging process and decreasing sex drive, McPherson would be less likely to commit a sexual assault in coming decades, according to Dickey.

Prosecution psychiatrist Phillip Klassen, on the other hand, was dubious about the effectiveness of sex drive-reducing chemicals.

Vertes will decide whether or not the designation of "dangerous offender" should apply to McPherson. If so, Vertes will then choose to render an indefinite sentence or one of a pre-determined length. If not, McPherson will be sentenced for the 1995 offences alone, which would carry a briefer jail term than the dangerous offender designation.

Under the regulations of the dangerous offender application as they read when McPherson committed the crime, he would be eligible for parole after three years -- in his case that would be in November, if he were to receive the designation.

There have been fewer than half a dozen dangerous offender applications filed in the North.