High-risk Kamloops sex offender wants to stay in jail
A convicted Kamloops sex offender known to target children and labelled by justice officials a high risk to re-offend has agreed to spend the foreseeable future in a jail cell.
David Bruce Jennings appeared briefly in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday Nov. 1,, facing one count each of sexual assault and sexual interference of a person under 16.
No details of the alleged crimes have been made public, but court documents state the offences took place in late August in Deadmans Creek, west of Kamloops.
Jennings, 48, was the subject of a rare public warning from B.C. Corrections in October 2011. At the time, officials said Jennings would be living in Kamloops and has a high risk to commit new sexual offences.
Last June, Kamloops Mounties arrested Jennings days after an incident outside a Valleyview pizza chain, where he had allegedly been trying to pick up a 14-year-old girl.
After being rebuffed, police said at the time, Jennings went to a nearby bank and gave a three-year-old girl a stuffed animal.
He was arrested six days later.
In the 1990s, Jennings was convicted in Alberta of sexually abusing two children, a four-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy.
He has a lengthy criminal history in Kamloops as well, having been convicted of a sex offence involving a nine-year-old girl in 1999.
Between 2003 and 2006, he racked up six breach convictions in Kamloops provincial court. In 2003, he was also convicted of assaulting a police officer and obstructing a police officer.
In court today, Jennings was expected to appear for a bail hearing.
"We're not going to be doing that," defence lawyer Murray Armstrong told the court.
"Mr. Jennings is consenting to remain in custody."
He is due back in court on Dec. 13.
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