Winnipeg man sentenced for violent sexual assaults

A Winnipeg manhas been sentenced to eight years behind bars and another 10 years undersupervision for violent sexual attacks on vulnerable women.

Douglas Bowman, 54, was arrested in September 2014 after two city sex workers came forward to police with allegations that a man had forced them to perform sex acts at knifepoint.

In both attacks, the first reported in January 2010 and the second in April 2013, the women told police their assailant had picked them up in a vehicle prior to the assaults.

In a release at the time of Bowman's arrest, police said the 2013 assault lasted nearly four hours and saw the 20-year-old victim sprayed with pepper spray that she'd pulled out in an attempt to protect herself.

Bowman was arrested after police released a composite sketch of their suspect through media.

He has previously been convicted on two counts of sexual assault with a weapon and two counts of uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm.

'Afailure to control his sexual impulses'

On Thursday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Joan McKelvey sentenced Bowman to 14 years in jail, which was reduced by six years for the time he's served since his arrest.

McKelvey also ordered he be put under the harshest long-term supervision order allowed for dangerous offenders, 10 years, upon his release from prison.

She called Bowman's assaults "traumatic and violent" and said he remains a high risk to re-offend despite mitigating factors including his age, deteriorating health and support from his wife.

Ultimately McKelvey said Bowman has shown a lack of remorse and insight for his crimes and a lack of empathy for his victims.

"Bowman has demonstrated a failure to control his sexual impulses in the past," she said in her sentencing.

"There is a likelihood of him causing injury, pain or other evil through the failure to control those impulses in the future."

In her sentence McKelvey also imposed a lifetime weapons prohibition and ordered Bowmanprovide a DNA sample, have no contactwith his victims andregister as a sex offender.

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