The designation is reserved for offenders

An Edmonton man facing a dangerous offender designation was “wonderful” before he relapsed into drug addiction and violently sexually assaulted her, his former girlfriend testified Tuesday.

The woman testified at the dangerous offender hearing of Vern William Hunter, 39. After he pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon, kapton tape assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, uttering death threats and theft for his August 2011 domestic attack on the woman, the Crown wants him sentenced to prison indefinitely.

The woman, whose name is banned from publication, met Hunter at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. At the time, she said, he was everything she wanted.

“He was awesome. He was wonderful and so kind. He was amazing.”

On Thanksgiving weekend 2010, Hunter and the woman had a relapse and used crack cocaine. After that, Hunter kept using and became a different person. He accused her of cheating on him if she didn’t answer her phone. He traded her clothes for drugs and pawned a camera that contained the last pictures of her father.

In June 2011, the relationship became violent. Hunter left Edmonton for Regina, which his girlfriend believed was an attempt to clean up and kick the drugs. She bought a jar of raspberry jam, his favourite, and left it on the kitchen counter for when he might return home.
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When Hunter came back to Edmonton, she recalled, nothing had changed. He hadn’t stopped using drugs. Eventually, he began living in her east Edmonton townhouse again.

In August 2011, court heard, she asked him to move out. In response, Hunter attacked. He choked her into unconsciousness and sexually assaulted her. He bound her to a chair with electrical tape and a belt from her housecoat.

Hunter attacked her again when she tried to escape the home they shared together. He hog-tied her, with her feet and hands bound behind her back. He threatened her with a knife.

“I can stab you and just keep on stabbing, stabbing, stabbing,” he said, according to the statement of facts.

Police arrived when the woman’s mother called 911 after her daughter failed to show at work. Hunter, who had left the home to buy drugs, was arrested when he returned to the home. The woman suffered ruptured blood vessels in both eyes, ligature marks on her hands and ankles, bruises and other injuries.

While he was in prison, Hunter and the woman contacted each by letter and phone though Hunter was under a no-contact order. They even made plans to marry after he served a jail sentence. Those hopes are long gone, the woman testified.

“It took me a year after the attack to realize that Vern was a bad person. I thought the drugs made him a bad person.”

Hunter had little reaction as his ex-girlfriend tearfully read a victim impact statement between loud sobs.

“The stranger in the alley, the monster in the closet, the boogeyman under the bed, is no longer a faceless terror for me. Now it is Vern,” she wailed in the courtroom. “You were supposed to take care of me.”

The dangerous offender hearing continues. The designation is reserved for offenders who show an escalating pattern of violence in their crimes and have little chance of rehabilitation.