Dangerous offender assessment ordered for child molester John Greene
Greene pleaded guilty to abducting, sexually assaulting and trying to kill a 7-year-old girl
John Adam Greene abducted, sexually assaulted and tried to kill a seven-year-old girl last year – and now a Hamilton judge will determine if Greene should be designated a dangerous, long-term offender in May.
A judge Monday set a date for his sentencing hearing to start, and ordered a medical assessment for Greene as part of that hearing. The assessment is to begin January 12 and will play a major part in the dangerous offender application.
The designation "dangerous offender" is reserved for Canada's most violent criminals and sexual predators.
Crown attorneys can seek the designation during sentencing and must show that there is a high risk that the criminal will commit violent or sexual offences in the future.
The designation carries an automatic sentence of imprisonment for an indeterminate period, with no chance of parole for seven years.
Greene won’t be named a dangerous offender unless a doctor can prove to a judge through an assessment that he should be, said his lawyer, Larissa Fedak. “In the end, it’s always up to a judge,” she said.
Greene pleaded guilty last month to charges of abduction, attempted murder, sexual interference, breach of probation and robbery. The charges stem from a violent incident last May when Greene grabbed a young girl from a central Hamilton apartment building.
According to an agreed statement of facts in the case, he viciously assaulted the girl both sexually and physically and then poured chlorine bleach all over her in an attempt to destroy any evidence.
Greene appeared in court on Monday in shackles, wearing a prison-issue orange jumpsuit and with his hair gelled. He started out incarcerated in a London jail last year, but was since moved to Niagara, then Hamilton, and now is in Maplehurst detention centre because of “safety issues,” Fedak said.
Greene’s nine-day sentencing hearing begins on May 11. He also appeared in a Hamilton courtroom Monday on unrelated uttering threats charges from an incident that happened before the young girl’s abduction.