Yukon man on lam from B.C. halfway house

A Canada-wide warrant has been issued for a Yukon man, convicted of two violent sexual assaults, after he walked away from his Vancouver halfway house this week.

Christopher Schafer, 33, left the halfway house on Monday, prompting the Vancouver Police Department to ask for the public's help in locating him.

Schafer has been convicted twice in the Yukon of sexual assault involving a weapon, with the most recent incident taking place in Whitehorse in September 2002.

Vancouver police have released information about Schafer, along with a photo, in the hopes someone will recognize him. At the same time, police are urging people not to approach Schafer if they see him.

"We're concerned about that because he has past convictions for sexual assault and weapons offences in relation to those sexual assaults," Vancouver police Const. Jana McGuinness told CBC News on Tuesday.

In 2003, a Yukon territorial court judge sentenced Schafer to five years in a federal prison for the Whitehorse incident, in which he broke into a woman's apartment and sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.

Schafer was also sentenced to five years of supervision after his release from prison, under the federal Corrections and Conditional Release Act. As well, the court declared Schafer a long-term offender.

At the time of the Whitehorse attack, Schafer had been on probation for sexually assaulting another woman at knifepoint in the northern Yukon community of Old Crow in 1999.

Whitehorse RCMP Sgt. Don Rogers told CBC News that Vancouver police do not expect Schafer to go back to the Yukon, in part because he has no money.

Police describe Schafer as aboriginal, five feet, eight inches in height and weighing 165 pounds. He has short brown hair and tattoos on his shoulders and left calf, as well as scars on his right knee, ankle, elbow and eyebrow.