Child sex predator deemed 'dangerous' loses fight to overturn conviction

A B.C. Appeal Court justice has dismissed a child sex predator's appeal of his conviction.

Ibata Hexamer initially pleaded guilty then tried to withdraw his guilty pleas after discovering he'd been arrested without a warrant, among other complaints about how his case was handled by police and the Crown prosecutor.

The child rapist, who is in his 40s, first pleaded guilty in 2012 to one count of sexual assault, three counts of sexual assault with a weapon and two counts of unlawful confinement.

His crimes involved girls between the ages of six and 14 and dated from 1995 until 2009.

In the case involving a six-year-old from Surrey, B.C., the court heard that Hexamer had threatened to stab her and forced her brother and his friend to lie on the ground in the woods and look away while he assaulted her.

Dangerous offender

He was designated a dangerous offender Feb. 6, 2016 and given an indeterminate sentence.

After that, he launched two appeals: one of his conviction, the other of his sentence, which had not yet been decided.

On Wednesday, the appeal of his conviction was dismissed.

In his April 18 appeal ruling, B.C. Appeal Court Justice Gregory Fitch said Hexamer admitted "to conduct that was predatory, violent and shockingly invasive."

Tried to back out of agreement with Crown

But two years after entering guilty pleas on six counts, Hexamer attempted to withdraw those pleas and back out of an agreement with the Crown prosecutor that stayed proceedings on 17 other counts and stipulated that Hexamer would be sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

The plea deal also guaranteed that the Crown would not make an assessment report under s.752.1 of the Criminal Code, an application to have him designated a dangerous offender. That designation enables the court to prolong his stay in jail, potentially for his entire life.

In Hexamer's 234-page affidavit filed in January 2013 he alleged that the lawyers (between four and six of them) who represented him over the years, had not been effective and the Crown had reneged on the deal by moving forward to have him designated a dangerous offender.

Claimed abuse of process

Initially, Hexamer also argued there was an abuse of process in his case because he was arrested without a warrant and his mother was duped into licking an envelope by investigators who then harvested DNA, which linked Hexamer to the crimes.

But that aspect of the appeal was abandoned.

Instead, Hexamer argued that the Crown had reneged on the plea agreement that guaranteed he would not be labelled a dangerous offender.

The judge decided that Hexamer's claims that the judge erred, the Crown abused process and that Hexamer's guilty pleas were uninformed — in that he didn't at first realize he'd been arrested without a formal warrant — had no merit. Fitch also ruled that Hexamer's contention he was ill-served by his lawyers was not true.

Fitch said that when Hexamer tried to back away from his guilty pleas he was warned that could "backfire."

"The appellant's second lawyer testified that the appellant was 'well aware' that rejecting the deal would expose him to a dangerous offender finding," Fitch wrote in his decision.