Notorious sex offender Randall Hopley received his sentence Friday for three charges he pleaded guilty to in late April.
Hopley was charged after disappearing from his halfway house in November 2023.
He went missing for 10 days in 2023 and the convicted sex offender cut off his ankle monitoring device before he fled the facility.
He also had a charge related to a violation of his release conditions from 2022. Hopley was caught using a computer at a public library — where he accessed a news article about a young boy and browsed underwear ads, according to the parole board decision.
Hopley was arrested by an off-duty Vancouver police officer outside a police station.
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He pleaded guilty to failing to attend court, breaking a long-term supervision order by being in the presence of children under 16, and failing or refusing to comply with a long-term supervision order by failing to reside at a community residential facility on April 26.
Crown was seeking a combined four-year sentence with no credit for time spent in custody, while the defence argued for a two-year sentence.
Sgt. Steve Addison later confirmed Hopley was going to turn himself in because he was “cold” when the off-duty officer recognized him.
Hopley is known for abducting a three-year-old boy from a southeastern B.C. home in 2011.
The 58-year-old made international headlines in September 2011 after he kidnapped a three-year-old boy from the child’s home in Sparwood, triggering an Amber Alert and a Canada-wide search.
Hopley returned the boy unharmed four days later and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to six years, serving his full term until October 2018.
He was released in 2018 under a 10-year long-term supervision order.
Hopley has been diagnosed with pedophilia, borderline intellectual functioning and a personality disorder. He has had his release suspended four times since 2019 for breaching conditions or being aggressive.
Halfway house staff found sex toys, adult pornography, adult male and female underwear and SIM cards in Hopley’s possession.
He has been assessed as a high risk to reoffend sexually and a moderate risk for other types of offences, and has repeatedly shown himself to have problems with self-control, including a history of angry outbursts at staff and his parole supervisor, according to a report.
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