Sentencing for repeat sex offender

Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

Repeat sex offender makes Penticton court appearance

A repeat  sex  offender  was sentenced to 30 days more in jail and 30 months of probation in a Penticton court room on Tuesday.

The decision was handed down by Justice Alison Beames,  after Graham Dodge, 25, pled guilty to three counts related to breach of probation on Monday.

Dodge’s offenses date back to 2006, when he was charged with sexually assaulting two boys.

Following the original sexual assault, he breached conditions including contacting children in some fashion and in one instance possessing child pornography.

He was sentenced on the assault and breaches in 2008 and given nine months in jail and a three years on probation.

He again breached by having contact with someone under 18  and was sentenced in 2010 to 14 months in jail plus a two year probation period.

The latest breaches of using a computer at the library, contact with person under 18 and having contact with a person under 18, date to December of 2011 when he introduced  himself and had a conversation with a 13-year-old related to the recording industry at the Penticton Public Library.

In his initial statement, Dodge said the boy approached him and there was communication regarding Dodge giving him his email.

There was a second contact between the two at the library, which would have been brief and innocuous, if it was not for Dodge’s history, said the judge.

In that same period the accused had contact with a 12-year-old boy, where they discussed  computers and video games.  In this case, he gave the boy his email and they spent time together at the library.

After a librarian observed his contact with the two boys, she called the police and Dodge was arrested.

He has been in custody for 14 months since.

Prior to the judge’s decision, Dodge said when he was arrested in 2010 he held down four jobs in web marketing. But because of the condition placed on him that he could not access a computer, he had difficulty putting together a resume to seek employment.

But Beames decided after all she had read and heard and the seriousness of the breaches to impose conditions that included Dodge not accessing the Internet and not to have any electronic device capable of accessing the Internet in the first 12 months of his probation.

This includes the use of computers or mobile phones, unless engaged in looking for work or education programs approved in advance by his probation officer.

In addition, the accused is to have no contact or be alone with persons under the age of 16 or attend any public places, swimming area  or the Penticton library, where people under the age of 16 are present, unless in the presence of a person approved in advance.

Beames wished the accused good luck and said she hopes he gets the counseling and assistance he needs to end the cycle of coming back before the court.