A woman is recovering after what Vancouver police call a violent assault in a Stanley Park bathroom on Monday morning.
Police said the woman was attacked in the women’s changing room near the Second Beach pool.
Police were called just before 11 a.m. after someone saw a suspicious man enter the changing room. When officers arrived, they found the woman, who is in her 40s and had been robbed and violently assaulted.
She was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Hartley Ronald Duckhorn, 35, was arrested nearby, police said.
He is charged with assault by choking, unlawful confinement, sexual assault with a weapon, robbery and uttering threat to cause death or bodily harm
Get daily National news
He remains in custody pending a bail hearing, police confirmed. His next court appearance is on May 23.
Vancouver police said Duckhorn has a history of violent offences – including a conviction for a stranger sexual assault in Surrey five years ago.
Duckhorn pleaded guilty in February 2021 to sexual assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement, and robbery in the July 10, 2020 attack on a woman near the King George SkyTrain Station in Whalley.
- Quebec mob takedown: Leonardo Rizzuto, alleged mafia boss, among 11 arrested
- World junior complainant made to feel like ‘object,’ memory gaps due to ‘trauma’: Crown
- Manhunt is ‘closing in’ on Travis Decker, dad accused of killing 3 daughters
- A Northern Ireland town has seen 2 nights of anti-immigrant violence. Why?
On Sept. 16, 2022, the BC Prosecution Service said Duckhorn was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for the armed sexual assault.
With credit for time already spent in custody since his arrest, he had two years, two months and 20 days left to serve behind bars.
Duckhorn received a two-year sentence to be served concurrently for unlawful confinement and robbery.
The court also ordered Duckhorn to comply with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act or national sex offender registry, and imposed a lifetime firearms ban.
It’s unclear when Duckhorn was released from prison but Vancouver police said he has been on their radar since March 2024.
“We’ve had a number of interactions with him throughout the past year mostly related to low-level offences, things like thefts and drug use, nothing certainly that rises to this level of seriousness,” said Sgt. Steve Addison Tuesday.
Addison said the woman attacked on Monday received medical attention in hospital for her injuries and is expected to recover.
Comments