SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Justice John Vertes declared convicted sex offender Bobby Kudlak a dangerous offender May 30 in Supreme Court in Yellowknife and sentenced him to an indeterminate period of imprisonment.

Kudlak, 37, originally from Cambridge Bay, appeared disinterested and showed no emotion as he sat in the prisoner's detention box and listened to the decision.

Vertes spoke to the court only for a few minutes, and rather than offering a lengthy oral explanation for his decision, provided lawyers and the media with a detailed 36-page written decision.

"Based on all the evidence, in particular this offender's criminal history and the expert psychiatric evidence, I am satisfied there is no reasonable expectation that a lesser measure will adequately protect the public," said Vertes, reading from the written decision.

The ruling also outlines Kudlak's lengthy criminal record, comprising 45 convictions, including 14 for crimes of sexual violence.

The dangerous offender sentence application stemmed from Kudlak's two most recent sexual assaults.

In July 2010, Kudlak pleaded guilty to fondling an 11-year-old girl in July 2009 while she was playing hide-and-go-seek at the Yellowknife Public Library and to fondling a 10-year-old girl in her residence while Kudlak was staying with the girl's parents in 2005.

Vertes' decision relied on the testimony of Dr. Scott Woodside, a psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, who concluded Kudlak was a high risk to reoffend based on his anti-social personality disorder, multiple forms of sexual deviance, including "an erotic preference" for young children, intellectual and cognitive functioning at a "borderline mental retardation level" and a coercive sexual preference as well as issues with alcohol and drug abuse and anger management, aggressive behaviour and impulse control.

Vertes described Kudlak's Cambridge Bay upbringing as "chaotic and plagued by chronic alcohol abuse."

When he was eight years old, Kudlak was taken from the home and made a ward of the court.

He was placed with a foster family in Yellowknife; however, after four years, he had to be relocated because of repeated complaints of his inappropriate sexual activity towards two young girls living in the home.

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