At Risk

"To be quite honest, it's not only the children that need to be protected, but women as well.  From what I understand from the dispositions, his problems also resonate with women.
"After what has been released in the last few days with Robert Pickton and the Connecticut murders, it's imperative that we do our moral obligation to society and at least let them know that they are at risk."
Sandra Johnston

The risk appears, from the record, to be considerable.  James Sidney Allen, labelled the "sadist pedophile", for stalking and gaining the trust, then committing a dreadful murder of an eight-year-old boy, Ricky Johnston, when he was just thirteen himself - finally after being incarcerated and treated at the Royal Ottawa Hospital's secure forensic unit in Brockville for 37 years - has been released.

A life sentence for murder is not that long.  And with the usual time off for 'good behaviour', a convicted murderer who has been handed a life sentence can easily be out of prison much sooner than the 25-year sentence.  But not James Sidney Allen.  He is now living without supervision for the first time in 37 years.  And this is a man who complains that while in treatment, the hospital team assigned to support him was not doing its job.

"...They are not at hand all the time when he needs them".  During their review of his situation the board made note in 2011 that "he relies on staff support and, insofar as the hospital team is concerned, its ability to respond to the accused's response to stress is important for his risk management."  His violent sexual urges were treated with hormone testing, but reports concluded he remained aroused by "sexual sadism and pedophilia".

More latterly the man who was accustomed to describing to his hospital support team his violent sexual fantasies, no longer claims to be titillated by them.  Of course, as the doctors point out, he is "self reporting"; they have no other way of ascertaining the veracity of his claim.  Other than to note that he reacts to stress with anger and drink.  His sexual urges respond to stress. 

A Crown attorney who spoke at the man's review board hearing the year before provided his opinion that a discharge would provide James Sidney Allen with "more freedom than is actually good for him".  And certainly if such freedom is judged not to be in his personal interest, it can be assumed that his freedom to be released to society does not auger well for his free presence within society.

Which makes it most helpful that the sister of the dead young boy has come forward to alert the public of the man's release.  In his discharge by the Ontario Review Board a strange conundrum exists.  In that it was only the previous year that the same board refused his release on hearing from a doctor who gave warning that "the risk associated with his pedophilic personality disorder ... is that a vulnerable woman or child could be subject to significant harm."

Their right to security and safety appears to stop where his begin. 

When he was arrested and assessed after the murder of young Ricky Johnston he was pronounced not guilty of the charges brought against him - the horribly gruesome murder of a little boy - by reason of insanity.  That was 1976, and he has been held in a mental hospital since that time.  Between 2011 and this year, the board has somehow turned their concern for public safety in a completely different direction.

Why?

His discharge order requires the man to check in with the hospital weekly, abstain from alcohol and drugs, provide urine samples, participate in rehabilitation courses and agree to be diligent in notifying the hospital of any plans to travel outside of Ontario.  Apart from which he is forbidden from close contact with any child under the age of 16.

We know why.

But why is the board sanguine with the prospect of this 51-year-old man following those cautionary orders, given the history of his mental state and his reliance upon doctors at the mental hospital to respond when he 'needs' them to.  Who will respond when his need is great while he is outside in the community and his psychosis results in an attack against a vulnerable child?