A prolific child sex offender will serve additional time behind bars following an attempted sexual assault of an 11 year-old girl at a Kelowna equestrian facility on Feb. 9, 2024.

Taylor Dueck, 30 was sentenced Monday to two-years-less-a-day in jail, and to another three years of probation.

Dueck has multiple prior convictions for sexually assaulting minors and was serving a three-year probation term for previous convictions when the attempted assault occurred at the equestrian facility.

Defence lawyer Robert Larmer says his client, who has partial fetal alcohol syndrome, has been assessed as having an IQ of somewhere between 56 to 67.

"Jail is not where a mentally handicapped person should be, particularly when they are vulnerable and low functioning, it doesn't help him, it doesn't help society, but it's also the only option here given Mr. Dueck's record," he said.

Dueck has also been diagnosed with PTSD, major depressive disorder, expressive language disorder and ADHD.

The sexual assault sparked a large public and political outcry after it was learned that Dueck's supervisor, an employee of Community Living BC subcontractor Personal Lifestyle Support Ltd., was sitting in his vehicle when the incident occurred.

Premier David Eby called the incident a “massive failure of judgment” at every level.

Community Living BC is a Crown corporation that provides supports and services to adults with developmental disabilities.

“This horrific incident should never have happened,” said Community Living BC in a statement to Castanet.

Dueck's lawyer says a lot of the blame should fall on the support worker.

"That full-time worker, instead of doing his job, sat in the car scrolling on his phone leaving Mr. Dueck unsupervised and as a result the offence happened. Had he done his job we wouldn't be here today, Mr. Dueck wouldn't be in custody, the complainant wouldn't have had this scary incident happen."

"So the system did fail. All of us are here today at the public's expense because that worker didn't do what was required of him," Larmer added.

-with files from Nicholas Johansen and Kathy Michaels