Halifax Regional Police warn of high-risk offender's release

WARNING: This story contains details about a sexual assault.

Halifax Regional Police are warning the public about a high-risk offender who has just been released from prison and is now living in the Halifax area.

Gamon Jay Leacock, 49, has completed a 14-year sentence for a series of crimes, including a violent sexual assault against a teenager and her boyfriend in a Montreal apartment in the summer of 2009.

Leacock was convicted of several charges, including forcible confinement, sexual assault with a weapon, uttering threats, theft and administering a noxious substance.

At his trial, the court heard that Leacock entered the apartment on the evening of Aug. 16, 2009, and assaulted a 19-year-old man, striking him in the face. He then tied the man's hands with electrical cords. Leacock then ordered the man's 18-year-old girlfriend into the bedroom, where he raped her with a knife held to her back.

The court found the assault lasted for about four hours, and at one point, Leacock ordered the pair to have sex while he watched.

After the assaults, Leacock made his victims smoke crack cocaine with him, then stole the woman's bank card to withdraw $200 from her account to buy more drugs. The pair managed to escape and police were called.

At his trial, Leacock claimed he had consensual sex with the woman, and denied all the other allegations. But the judge ruled Leacock's evidence was not credible.

He sentenced him to seven years, on top of a seven-year sentence he was already serving for previous crimes. Leacock appealed both his sentence and conviction to the Quebec Court of Appeal, but lost on both counts.

Halifax police are warning the public not to take vigilante action against Leacock.

2021 parole board assessment

The last time he was assessed by the Parole Board of Canada was in November 2021. The board decided at that time that Leacock remained too high a risk to be released from prison.

The board cited a psychological assessment from 2019 that found he was at a very high risk ofre-offending sexually. It also noted that Leacock's violent and aggressive behaviour had continued while he was behind bars.

"File information indicates that in a number your offences, you threatened your victims verbally and/or with weapons and that you have used both physical and psychological brutality," the board wrote.

"You have shown lasting difficulties controlling your violent and sexual impulses."