Police arrest ‘dangerous offender’ in Ontario who attacked 5-year-old

OPP’s ROPE squad says a dangerous, high-risk offender who police said posed a risk to the community and children has been arrested in Toronto.

Police said 44-year-old Simon Gares was on a Canada-wide warrant for allegedly breaching his statutory release. He went missing on April 7, and was arrested by the Toronto Police Service.

Gares is serving an eight-month, 17-day sentence for breach of a long-term supervision order.

Gares was released from prison to live in a community-based residential facility in Toronto on statutory release on March 14. Toronto police had issued a warning notifying the public about Gares because of his demonstrated risk to the community and children.

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While on statutory release, Gares held numerous conditions, including not entering drinking establishments, not consuming alcohol, not consuming drugs and following a treatment plan.

Gares was convicted of assault causing bodily harm in 2019 and found to be a dangerous offender, according to police.

Court documents showed Gares’ victim was a five-year-old child who, in 2016, was assaulted while entering a bakery with his mother and brother.

Multiple witnesses reported seeing Gares kick the child with great force, according to the documents. The young child was rendered temporarily unconscious and taken to hospital.

Court documents also showed that in 2013, Gares “threatened to kill elementary school aged children” when he was angered by the Children’s Aid Society’s refusal to allow him access to his own children.

Records show his lawyer felt these threats to be “sufficiently serious to necessitate informing the police.”

He was convicted on two charges of threatening death, theft, assault with intent to resist arrest and failing to comply with probation.

Upon his release in 2015, police issued a public warning to about two dozen public schools in his former neighbourhood, sending home letters to parents about his “threat to public safety.”