{"id":174751,"date":"2018-08-03T01:31:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T05:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=174751"},"modified":"2018-08-03T01:31:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T05:31:53","slug":"halifax-aggravated-sexual-assault-case-put-defence-awaits-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/03\/halifax-aggravated-sexual-assault-case-put-defence-awaits-dna\/","title":{"rendered":"Halifax aggravated sexual assault case put over as defence awaits DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: \u201cThe court may take a different position when the matter comes back to court.\u201d (Photo by University of Michigan School for Environment\/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

HALIFAX \u2014 The case of a known sex offender charged with aggravated sexual assault and choking after a woman said she was attacked in a Halifax home has been adjourned again.<\/p>\n

Sem Paul Obed appeared in Halifax provincial court today by video link, and his lawyer Brad Sarson told Judge Marc Chisholm that he wanted more time before proceeding.<\/p>\n

Sarson said he was awaiting forensic DNA analysis, among other things.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Sean McCarroll pointed out that the case has already been put off several times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Crown would like to see this matter proceed as quickly as possible,\u201d said McCarroll.<\/p>\n

But Chisholm said delaying the matter for another month was not \u201cunreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court may take a different position when the matter comes back to court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The judge asked Obed if he agreed to the delay, and he responded: \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case was adjourned until Sept. 5.<\/p>\n

Obed was charged in June after a woman said she was sexually assaulted by a man who broke into a home on Cunard Street.<\/p>\n

Police have said the suspect fled the home before the woman contacted officers at about 11:50 a.m. on June 1, and Obed was arrested at a home in the Fairview area less than five hours later.<\/p>\n

Obed, who is in his late 40s, is facing charges of aggravated sexual assault, choking to overcome resistance, uttering threats, break and enter and two counts of breaching court orders.<\/p>\n

He has a criminal record going back decades.<\/p>\n

Records from the provincial court of Newfoundland and Labrador in Happy Valley-Goose Bay and obtained by The Canadian Press list dozens of convictions against Obed, including attempted murder, sexual assault and assault with a weapon.<\/p>\n

Police issued a high-risk offender notice in 2014 when Obed was released from federal prison, saying he was \u201ca very high risk to reoffend in a sexual and violent manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The warning echoed a Parole Board of\u00a0Canada\u00a0decision that said Obed has a well-established pattern of extreme violence that began at an early age.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HALIFAX \u2014 The case of a known sex offender charged with aggravated sexual assault and choking after a woman said …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":174446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-aly-thomson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}