High-risk sex offender Randall Hopley evaded police manhunt by hiding under a bridge, court hears

High-risk sex offender Randall Hopley hid out under a bridge in South Vancouver while the subject of an intense 10-day police manhunt and Canada-wide warrant in November. 

The details emerged Friday during sentencing arguments in Vancouver provincial court where Hopley has pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching his long-term supervision order and one charge of failing to appear in court. 

The 58-year-old walked away from his halfway house in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on Nov. 4, taking his belongings in a box and wagon, before cutting off his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

A significant police effort failed to find any trace of the fugitive and Vancouver police said he had "gone to ground," meaning he was intentionally trying to evade capture.

Ten days later he appeared at the door of the Vancouver Police Department annex on East Cordova Street in the early morning, waiting for it to open so he could turn himself in because he was cold, police said.

Crown is asking for a cumulative four-year jail sentence for the four charges, noting Hopley's disturbing history of child sexual abuse and high risk of breaching court orders.

"When you go AWOL you [lose] any attempt that society has, or the courts or correction authorities have, of controlling and managing Mr. Hopley's risk in community," a Crown lawyer said.

Hopley's defence is asking for a six-month sentence, arguing in part that he should be given some credit for turning himself in. 

The agreed statement of facts read into the court record noted that Hopley said in a police interview that he ran away from the halfway house because he was "annoyed at people."

Hopley told police that while AWOL, he hung out under a bridge that was quite busy during the day but quiet between the hours of 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. PT.

Hopley's defence counsel told the court the bridge was in South Vancouver.

During Friday's hearing, Hopley sat casually beside his lawyer at the front of the courtroom wearing a red prison jumpsuit.

His record of child sexual abuse involves multiple victims and dates back to the 1980s.

Hopley served a total of six years in prison for abducting a three-year-old in the middle of the night from his home in Sparwood, B.C., in 2011. He returned the boy to his home four days later after holding him in an abandoned cabin.  

He was released under a 10-year supervision order in November 2018, at which time Vancouver police issued a public warning that he still posed a risk of significant harm to young boys.

In November 2022, he was found to have breached his supervision order, which dictates that he cannot connect to the internet unsupervised and cannot be around children under the age of 16. 

Hopley was observed by a member of the Vancouver Police Department's high-risk offender unit browsing underwear ads and looking at a news article about a young boy on a computer at the Marpole Library. He was also in the vicinity of a group of children attending a storytime event at the library.

After being charged, he was given bail and returned to the halfway house, but he failed to attend a court hearing for those charges because he was on the lam from the halfway house. 

The judge in the case has reserved her decision.