A man with a string of convictions for sexual assault will remain in prison indefinitely after losing an appeal.
B.C.’s highest court upheld Ryan Ziegler’s dangerous offender designation last week and tossed out his calls for a new hearing.
Ziegler was declared a dangerous offender in January 2010, two years after he was convicted of sexual assault for cupping the breast of a paramedic outside Ridge Meadows Hospital.
The paramedic and her partner had taken Ziegler to hospital because he called 911, claiming he had overdosed on “six caps of ecstasy and two lines of cocaine.”
He was on probation at the time for two similar sexual assaults.
The dangerous offender designation meant 35-year-old Ziegler received an indeterminate jail sentence for the assault on the paramedic and couldn’t apply for parole for seven years.
He has lengthy criminal history with more than 80 criminal convictions.
Madam Justice Kathryn Neilson found there was enough evidence admitted to support the “dangerous offender” designation.
“I am satisfied the judge’s errors caused no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice, as there is no reasonable possibility the outcome of the proceeding would have been any different,” wrote Neilson.
“The evidence as to Mr. Ziegler’s inability to control his sexual impulses in the past, as well as the likelihood he will be unable to control them in future, remains overwhelming.”
