High-risk sex offender Randall Hopley arrested shortly after release from prison, police say

Vancouver police say they arrested high-risk sex offender Randall Hopley on Thursday not long after he received statutory release from prison. 

Hopley was released from Mission Institution Thursday morning, police said, and was directed to reside in a Vancouver halfway house. 

"He refused direction of his parole officer and left the halfway house," Vancouver police said in a statement. 

He was arrested later in the day after a Canada-wide warrant was issued, according to police.  

British Columbia Premier David Eby said he was "deeply disappointed" that the Correctional Service of Canada did not provide notification of Hopley's release, particularly in the neighbourhood where he was sent to live.

He said at an unrelated news conference in Whitehorse, where he was attending the Western premiers conference, that public confidence in the justice system is "being tested right now."

"We need the federal government to step up and ensure that things like this can't happen. It just doesn't make any sense to anybody."

Hopley completed a six-year prison term for the 2011 abduction of a three-year-old boy in southeastern B.C. and was released in 2018 to a Vancouver halfway house under a 10-year long-term supervision order. 

Vancouver police issued a public warning in 2018 that he still posed a risk of significant harm to young boys.

He was arrested in January 2023 for allegedly violating conditions of the order.

Hopley's criminal record also included convictions for assault and sexual crimes, including three sex offences against children.

He was the subject of a 10-day manhunt in November 2023, which ended after he was found standing at the locked door of the Vancouver Police Department annex on East Cordova Street near Main Street.