Alta. rapist declared dangerous offender

A man who sexually assaulted an Ottawa woman in Banff, Alta., leaving her in a coma, has been designateda dangerous offender and could spend the rest of hislife in prison.

Albert Muckle withdrew his opposition to the Crown's application for the designation during a hearing in Banff on Thursday.

Judge Sandra Hamilton told the court Muckle is a high risk to reoffend.

"The anguish which this young woman and her family undergoes on a daily basis defies description,"Hamilton said. "Day by day they must watch her life erode from them."

The25-year-old drifter from Ontario pleaded guilty in September 2005 to aggravated sexual assault and attempted murder in the attack a few months earlier.

Although six days have been set aside for thehearing in Banff, Muckle toldhis lawyer that he didn't want to fight the application.

As a dangerous offender, the National Parole Board will review his case in six years, then again every two years after that.

Attempted murder

Police said the victim, who worked in a Banff hotel, was strangled and left unconscious and partially clothed in a park near the Bow River on July 11.

Muckle's victim — who was six weeks pregnant at the time, and engaged to be married — has been in a persistent vegetative state since the attack, and is now being cared for at a clinic in her hometown of Ottawa.Doctors say she will likely never recover.

Muckle's lawyer, Harry Van Harten told the court there was no excuse for the attack, but he wanted the National Parole Board to know about Muckle's upbringing.

"You have a young man who came to the attention of child welfare authorities almost from the day of his birth," van Harten said.

Born in prison

Mucklewas born in prison, grew upin the rough Wabaseemong (White Dog) First Nation reserve in Kenora, Ont., and began his criminal history at 12.

He spent most of his life in institutions and foster homes, after being taken from his mother at a young age.

In 1999, he began a four-year prison sentence for stabbing a cabbie twice while in a drunken rage, according to a report in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Mucklelater took part in a prison gang war and was transferred in 2002 to another detention centre because of it. He was caught hiding an exacto knife and a shank in his cell.

The process of declaring someone a dangerous offender must be initiated by a Crown prosecutor. Only those who have been convicted of a serious personal injury offence qualify for the designation.