Advocate Disturbed By Dangerous Offender Decision

Advocate Disturbed By Dangerous Offender Decision

Monday, January 18, 2010 at 12:47

An anti-racism advocate says hearing a Regina judge name Andy Harold Peekeekoot a dangerous offender made him literally sick to his stomach.

Bob Hughes was present in Judge Lloyd Deshaye’s courtroom Friday when the decision was handed down, shocking both Peekeekoot and Hughes, who expected that the 30-year-old Ahtahkakoop man would be given a chance to find new legal representation.

Hughes, who is with the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Racism, or SCAR, says he was “stunned”, both by the judge’s decision and the fact that he did it while Peekeekoot had no lawyer.

“It felt like I was in a time warp. I felt like I was in the deep south, during the civil rights time there. My physical reaction was a sick — I felt sick,” Hughes says.

Hughes says that despite the judge’s primary reason for the decision — namely, a record dating back to 1991, with close to 20 convictions for violence — naming Peekeekoot a dangerous offender seems extreme.

He calls the designation “Canada’s equivalent of the death penalty”.