TORONTO – The family of an abducted B.C. toddler who was returned safely five days after his disappearance has gone public with its criticisms of the Canadian justice system.
Paul Hebert, the father of three-year-old Kienan Hebert, questions why his son’s alleged kidnapper, 46-year-old Randall Hopley, was released from prison time and again without evidence of rehabilitation or confidence that he would not reoffend.
Speaking to media on Monday, one day after Kienan’s return, Hebert condemned the criminal justice system.
“Hopley was taken in because he had a problem and he had a record of having a problem. Now Hopley is out for a reason. Because someone didn’t do their job right, and it was not the police,” Hebert said.
“The judicial system that didn’t correct Hopley to begin with, they invaded our rights,” said Hebert.
“The judge let him walk with no help. That’s what failed: The system. Mr. Hopley needs help and the judicial system failed him, and in doing so failed us, as well,” he said.
Hopley is a convicted sex offender with a troubled past. In the 1980s, he served two years in federal prison for sexual assault. In 2002, he served a three-month conditional sentence for break and enter charges.
Just two months later, Hopley served another conditional sentence for theft under $5,000. In 2006 Hopley received a nine-month conditional sentence for another break-and-enter in Sparwood.
In 2007, Hopley was again in trouble with the law on charges of break and enter, unlawful confinement and the attempted abduction of a person under 16 years old. He served 18 months, pleading guilty to break and enter charges. The other charges were dropped.
In April 2011, he served a two-month term for an assault that took place in Sparwood.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment relating to the Hebert’s criticisms.
In a statement sent to Global News, Justice Canada said “we cannot comment on the circumstances of a specific case. The protection of all Canadians against violence, including children and other vulnerable persons, is a continuing priority for our Government… The Government has also committed to re-introducing legislation to increase the penalties for sexual offences against children and to eliminate the use of conditional sentences, or house arrest, for serious offences like abduction and kidnapping.”
Hopley arrested near B.C.-Alberta border
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On Tuesday, police arrested Hopley near the Alberta-British Columbia border. A K9 tracking unit which had been working through the night found Hopley hiding in a gravel pit off a highway in Alberta.
Hebert credits the RCMP for doing everything they could to find the boy and Hopley, including issuing an AMBER alert, extensive ground searches, K9 search teams and raising road blockades around B.C.
Questions remain
Kienan was delivered unharmed early Sunday morning. An anonymous 911 caller told police they would find the boy at home, which was empty and left unlocked.
The rare but happy turn of events shifts the focus of the terrifying ordeal from abduction to questions on the role of police and the efficacy of the Canadian justice system. How could a wanted man-with his photo and car description headline news for days-return unnoticed to the scene of a crime, still cordoned off with police tape, without so much as a sighting?
“To have the child returned to the home at three o’clock in the morning, that’s really unprecedented,” said Brad Bostock, executive director of Child Find Canada, a charitable organization that assists in the search for and prevention of missing children.
“I don’t think anybody realistically thought, ‘He’s probably going to bring the kid right back home and put him on the couch,’ so we should have a law-enforcement officer sitting on that couch waiting,’ ” he told The Canadian Press on Monday.
Still, Canadians continue to question how Hopley, a reoffending criminal and a convicted sex offender, could live in a community less than 4,000-strong without residents made aware of his troubled past?
Christy Dzikowicz is the director of MissingKids.ca, a missing children resource centre that offers support to families and communities affected by abductions.
Dzikowicz believes the Hebert case presents a good opportunity to correct any shortcomings of the criminal justice system.
“This isn’t a parenting issue. This is a criminal justice issue,” said Dzikowicz.
“I think we do need to take a look at how communities are notified of offenders and also what types of services need to exist and be offered to people who have these types of histories,” she said.
The Hebert case-that a child would be kidnapped by a repeat offender-is something Dzikowicz sees frequently in her organization, which is why missingKids.ca created a network of services to help educate Canadians on abduction prevention and community response.
“There are signs, symptoms or signals,” she said of previous abduction cases involving a convicted repeat offender.
“I think proper attention to this individual’s past to this point needs to be examined to figure out where we can intercept to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she said.
A criminal mind
“If (offenders) have finished with their sentence or whatever time they were to serve, they can be released,” said Dr. Larry Fong, an Alberta-based psychologist and mediator who has consulted on child abduction cases before the court, as well as provided psycho-legal training to a host of family services, including Child Find Canada.
“The difficulty for many individuals, disclosing that you offended against a child could put your own life at harm,” he said.
Fong underscored a series of similarities between the Hebert abduction case and many other North American abduction cases where the kidnapper is a stranger to the child or family.
“For some of these individuals that abduct, they do have a previous record. Many are known to police or have had a previous offence in a similar area…some of them may be unemployed, a certain age range and nomadic. They could blend in to most other people because other people wouldn’t notice them,” said Fong.
“A lot of kids are taken away from environments that are familiar to them, a playground, a school,” Fong explained.
“A lot of kids are taken right out of their home and that may be because there is easy access to the home…or the kid is left unsupervised or the house is left open.”
In the Hebert case, the family home in Sparwood sits on a large plot of land in a residential area near other homes, but there is no fence around the property.
“A lot of kids disappear from their own family residence and there is some weather phenomenon here. It appears that fewer abductions occur during the winter and a lot of abductions occur during a holiday, Christmas, Easter, March or summer school break,” Fong said.
Kienan Hebert was taken from his family home last Tuesday following the Labour Day long-weekend.
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