There is fallout this week after a failure to keep a repeat sex offender away from children in Kelowna. As Travis Prasad reports, the offender was supposed to be supervised, but a lapse led to the alleged assault of an 11-year-old girl – Mar 7, 2024
As more information about the alleged sexual assault of a Kelowna girl comes to light, pressure to hold someone accountable is mounting.
Taylor Dueck is accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl at a Kelowna equestrian centre where they were both taking lessons last month, and the matter was raised in the legislature again Wednesday, with both the premier and official opposition calling for action.
Kevin Falcon, leader of the official opposition, said that Community Living BC, a government agency overseeing Dueck, drove the convicted predator to an equestrian centre, dropped him off and a worker waited in the car in the parking lot, looking at their phone, while Dueck went on to allegedly assault the child.
“Who is going to be fired for this utterly despicable failure to keep our children safe?” Falcon asked the premier.
Eby said that at every level, “this was a massive failure of judgment for CLBC.”
“To take on responsibility for someone with a criminal record like this, and for them to subcontract that responsibility to an obviously negligent and incompetent subcontractor … it is outrageous,” Eby said.
He pointed out that the person had one job to do, which was to make sure that Dueck had no contact with any children, and they failed. Raising further questions is the fact that whoever was making these decisions thought a horse farm where children took lessons was the right place for a high-risk offender to go.
“I think about this family a lot because it could happen to any family,” he said.
“This is why it’s so important there be an investigation to identify the individuals who exercised this profound lack of judgment, to hold them accountable and reassure families in B.C. that government does not find this acceptable, … that it is the absolute most unbelievable string of incompetent decision making, that one could even imagine.”
Community Living BC offered a statement on the incident, noting they too believe it should never have happened.
“Whenever a service provider is working with someone involved in the criminal justice system, it is CLBC’s expectation that the service providers work closely with the probation officers to ensure that their staff are doing what they can to secure everyone’s safety,” CLBC said in a statement.
“We have placed the service provider’s contract under review and will be participating fully in the investigation the government has launched.”
According to their statement, the person with Dueck that day was the employee of a contracted service provider – not a Community Living BC employee.
“Their contract is under review and this incident is under active investigation, but we can say that the service provider is not currently supervising anyone else on court ordered conditions,” they said.
“In circumstances where a service provider does not adequately ensure appropriate conditions are met, CLBC’s Quality Assurance division investigates the matter. This type of investigation could lead to consequences up to and including termination of one or all contracts with an agency.”
Dueck had a bail hearing on Wednesday and a decision on his potential release. The BC Prosecution Service said the judge has reserved her decision and Dueck is back in court on Friday.
If he does gain release, it’s unclear whether a warning will be made.
Lower Mainland RCMP in 2020 issued a warning about Dueck under the Privacy Act of Canada because he had been deemed a high risk to reoffend sexually. Police said at the time that he posed a risk to the safety of female children under the age of 18 years old.
When he was released into Kelowna prior to recent allegations, RCMP did not issue a public interest disclosure, saying the threshold had not been deemed to have been met by the agency with “the best and most recent knowledge of the subject.”
“While we cannot speak for other agencies, the BC RCMP has been very proactive with issuing a PID when we become aware of a person’s release into one of our communities,” Cpl. Michael Gauthier said in a statement. “I can confirm that a PID was sought prior to his release in Kelowna, however, the threshold was not met in this case based on the totality of the circumstances.”
In an October 2022 decision, the board pointed out that Dueck had been on some form of court-ordered supervision or had been serving a jail sentence exclusively for offences involving sexual violence, without any real break, for nearly the previous nine years.
At that time, a psychological risk assessment was completed and Dueck was found to be “well above average risk for future sexual offending.” The assessor, in that case, said Dueck could re-offend at any time if he came across a female, of any age, he viewed as “weaker or easily manipulated/controlled.”
