The Crown is asking a court to determine whether Gordon James Joseph Leclerc, convicted in a 2021 violent sexual assault on a Vancouver senior, should be designated a dangerous offender.
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Gordon James Joseph Leclerc, 75, appeared in court on Tuesday to determine whether he should be designated a dangerous offender and jailed indefinitely.
The Crown said Leclerc was originally charged with aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon — a cane — for incidents between Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, 2021.
Court heard that Leclerc and a then-76-year-old victim met across from Waterfront Station in Vancouver on Sept. 7 and then took a cab together over the Burrard Bridge.
The woman, who uses a motorized wheelchair, was missing from her downtown care home for almost two days.
When she returned the morning of Sept. 9 with significant bruising and discolouration on her face, Vancouver police said staff at the facility called them.
Leclerc was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault on March 18, 2025.
Court also heard details of Leclerc’s criminal history, which dates back to a June 1980 indecent assault.
In October 1982, the court heard Leclerc began his first federal sentence for indecent assaults on a random 12-year-old boy in Enderby and a 15-year-old boy in Vernon, along with the rape of a woman, and was released on mandatory supervision in 1986.
While on parole, the court heard he committed new offences against three boys ages nine to 10 in Mission, and after pleading guilty to sexual assault and sexual interference, he served a second federal sentence of seven years.
The court also heard that Leclerc began a third federal sentence of 21-and-a-half years in 1997 for three new sexual offences in Alberta, including one involving a seven-year-old boy, as well as a historical assault and forcible confinement.
The court heard that in December 2018, Leclerc received a one-time statutory release to Belkin House in Vancouver, but a year later he committed new offences, including sexual assault.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the Crown asked clinical psychologist Dr. Lindsey Jack whether Leclerc’s age might reduce the risk in the future.
Jack told the court, “He didn’t desist when he was 71,” adding that, “just because someone is getting old, it does not mean there is a certain point when they could be deemed safe.”
The dangerous offender hearing was scheduled to resume on Thursday.
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