Robert Thomas Crowe - Repeat Sex Offender - Was still on probation

A registered sex offender from Cole Harbour stands accused of attacking a young woman in Dartmouth on Sunday.

Robert Thomas Crowe, 22, is still on probation for sexually assaulting two teenagers on a Cole Harbour path in 2007.

He was arrested Tuesday in connection with the weekend incident and appeared in Dartmouth provincial court this afternoon on charges of sexual assault, anal intercourse and breaching probation.

The Crown is opposed to Crowe's release so the case was adjourned until Monday for a bail hearing.

Judge Flora Buchan remanded Crowe to the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth.

Const. Brian Palmeter, spokesman for Halifax Regional Police, said the assault happened early Sunday morning at a Pleasant Street address and wasn't random.

The 18-year-old victim gave officers a statement at police headquarters later that day, Palmeter said.

Crowe was 19 when he attacked a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy in woods near Sir Robert Borden Junior High School in Cole Harbour on Aug. 24, 2007. He forced the teens to remove their clothes by threatening them with a rock. He made the girl perform oral sex on him and then on the boy while he watched. Crowe also grabbed the boy’s genitals at one point. Police arrested Crowe six months later, in February 2008, after semen on the girl’s clothing matched a sample of his DNA in a federal databank.

The Ancaster Court resident pleaded guilty in Dartmouth provincial court that May to two counts of sexual assault with a weapon and single counts of unlawful confinement and robbery.

Associate Chief Judge Brian Gibson accepted a joint recommendation from the Crown and the defence and sentenced Crowe to 18 months in jail, followed by 16 months of probation.

The judge also ordered that Crowe be listed on the province's sex offender registry for 20 years and prohibited him from possessing weapons or explosives for the rest of his life.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte

"On average most sex offenders are never caught again for a new sex offense, after five years, between 10 and 15 percent of sex offenders are detected, often convicted, of committing a new sex offense. If you follow them for ten years the rates go up somewhat, if you follow them as long as we’ve been able to follow them, which is about 20 years, the rates go up to somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of the total sample will eventually be caught for a new sex offense."

Dr. R. Karl Hansen