Following a two-month break, a dangerous offender hearing resumed Tuesday for a man who admitted to a brutal sexual assault on a Penticton woman.
David Wesley Bobbitt, 38, pleaded guilty in 2013 to seven offences, including aggravated sexual assault and unlawful confinement, in connection with an incident two years earlier at his second-hand shop on Ellis Street.
The then-22-year-old victim was assaulted in front of her young son during the 12-hour ordeal, which ended when she was found by an RCMP officer who’d been contacted about her disappearance by her friends and family.
Bobbitt was arrested four days later near Oliver and has been in custody since.
The Crown is seeking to have Bobbitt declared a dangerous offender, a designation that can include an indefinite jail term.
The hearing began in mid-June and lasted two weeks prior to adjournment.
It previously heard from a woman who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Bobbitt in 2007 during an incident that did not result in charges but is meant by the Crown to demonstrate a pattern of criminal behaviour.
Two of the witnesses called Tuesday spoke to the 2007 case.
Marlo Riley, a cab driver who picked up the woman and her dogs following the alleged assault, told the court she was crying, distraught and “very upset.”
He said she asked to go to the Penticton Indian Reserve to drop off the animals and then to the Penticton hospital, but later changed her mind and stayed on the reserve.
Const. Jeff Cranton, who interviewed the woman that same day at the Penticton RCMP detachment, testified that he noticed bruises on her nose, cheeks and neck, plus a scratch on her bottom lip.
“She still appeared upset and scared, but she was co-operative,” said Cranton, who admitted under cross-examination that he had dealt with the woman before, but couldn’t remember the nature of those interactions.
Defence counsel James Pennington also got Cranton to agree that another Mountie had reminded the woman about telling the truth in her statement since “there had been other incidents where her complaints had been unfounded.”
The hearing continues through this week.
