TRANQUILLE ON THE LAKE The old sanitorium site is growing history and the future. Andrea Klassen’s story, Dave Eagles’ photos - pages A3, A16 EB
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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 X Volume 26 No. 46 www.kamloopsthisweek.com X 30 cents at Newsstands
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5 YEARS O G2 FC IN O AT
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THIS WEEK
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REPEAT RAPIST FOCUS OF COURT HEARING By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
A hearing in a Kamloops courtroom this week will determine if convicted rapist Jack Froese should be designated a dangerous offender. The 33-year-old pleaded guilty last year to charges of kidnapping and sexual assault after he abducted a woman from the Crystal Blush Adult Boutique on Tranquille Road on Nov. 24, 2011. He drugged and assaulted her over a period of hours. Charges of theft of a motor vehicle and administering a noxious substance were stayed.
Froese has a long history of criminal offences, including many convictions for violent sexual assaults. Parole documents indicate he has refused treatment in the past. On Monday, June 10, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Rogers, overseeing the hearing on the fifth floor of the Kamloops Law Courts, heard testimony from Bernice Hammett, the probation officer assigned to Froese after he was released from a federal prison and moved to Kamloops to live with family in May 2011. Hammett said she had felt Froese was working well on his
reintroduction to society after spending most of eight years in prison for other assaults. Part of that success, Hammett said, was the fact Froese had a pregnant girlfriend, appeared to be abiding by his parole conditions and was actively seeking employment. Hammett also spoke of Froese’s difficulty adjusting to life outside of prison, noting he felt anxious and was reluctant to co-operate with a request by a forensic psychiatrist he submit to a urinalysis before new medications could be prescribed for him. Hammett noted Froese’s family —
mother, stepfather and sister — were agreeable to him living with them and were eager to do what they could to help him adjust, find work and function in society. She said Froese noted a drug test through urinalysis wasn’t required by the conditions of his parole. Hammett said Froese was agitated the psychiatrist would not prescribe for him the same drugs he had been taking in prison for anxiety and depression. The doctor, Hammett said, wanted to know of any other drugs Froese might be taking before he prescribed medication.
JACK FROESE: Serial rapist subject of dangerous-offender hearing.
[the froese file www.kamloopsthisweek.com
Hammett said Froese eventually agreed to comply after he had been detained by police twice for breaching his parole conditions.
After his second parole breach — failing to respond for a curfew check by police — Froese was jailed for about six weeks. Hammett said Froese’s mother told her Froese had not only been home on the night in question, but had answered the door. However, Froese’s mother also told the probation officer she had found items in her son’s bedroom that worried her — pill bottles that were empty, bottles that should have had several doses remaining if the appropriate doses were being taken. Hammett said Froese’s mother told her she was concerned about
her son’s strange behaviour and wondered if it was his sexual “fetish” coming into play again or if it was post-incarceration adjustment issues. Froese’s lawyer, Jeremy Jensen, has said in the past he will argue against a dangerousoffender classification, which could mean Froese can be kept behind bars indefinitely. A two-hour victimimpact statement by Froese’s victim is expected to be played in court today (June 11). Froese was convicted of sexual assault in 2003 and again in 2004, when he raped a Saskatoon hotel worker at knifepoint for 25 minutes.
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