IQALUIT - A sex offender the RCMP considers at high risk to re-offend was in court Thursday, June 18, to challenge an application to put conditions on his release.

Lanny Kippomee was released from Baffin Correctional Centre on May 29.

Convicted sex offender Lanny Kippomee of Pond Inlet, who the RCMP considers to be at high risk to re-offend, is fighting an application to put conditions on his release. - photo courtesy of RCMP "V" Division

He had served three years at the Regional Treatment Centre of Kingston, Ont., for assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failure to comply with court-imposed conditions.

The conditions would include a curfew from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., notifying his parole officer and the police if he changes residence or travels for any reason, and not contacting several people whose names are protected by publication bans.

Other conditions would include consuming no alcohol or other drugs, keeping the peace, reporting to a parole officer in Pond Inlet, and taking whatever anger management and sex offender treatment is available in that community.

If Kippomee starts a new relationship with a woman, the conditions of the proposed peace bond would require him to introduce her to his parole officer.

Kippomee's defence lawyer Mandy Sammurtok called that condition "onerous," because she says her client is not interested in having another relationship with a woman because they have caused him nothing but trouble.

According to Crown prosecutor Marion Bryant, Kippomee's participation in sex offender treatment programs in prison was not satisfactory.

Reports from his parole officer said Kippomee only talked in counselling meetings when directly questioned, and still held to some "cognitive distortions" such as saying that rape relieves a man's tension.

Sammurtok said though Kippomee's record of treatment in prison had been spotty, part of the problem had been that Corrections Canada hadn't offered Kippomee the counselling services that he needed, such as drug and alcohol addiction counselling.

The parole officer who classified Kippomee as a high-risk to re-offend also expressed frustration at how limited the resources for his treatment have been.

Judge Beverley Browne said she would make her decision on June 29, after which Kippomee intends to return home to Pond Inlet.