CALGARY — The Crown will proceed with a dangerous offender application against a serial bank robber who stole from institutions across Canada.
Defence counsel Harry Van Harten said Crown prosecutor Joanne Durant has informed him she expects to get ministerial clearance to go ahead with the hearing.
Franklin Donnelly, 43, pleaded guilty last year to 13 charges related to a summer 2006 crime wave that went from Ontario to the west coast and back again.
He committed 10 robberies, including three in Calgary, between his release from a Kingston federal prison on June 20 and his arrest in Montreal on Sept. 8, 2006.
He crisscrossed the country, robbing banks in Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa, and hijacking an airport shuttle bus in Richmond, B.C., making the driver take him to Vernon.
During the robberies, notes were used, usually containing threats of violence against the teller. The first heist, in Winnipeg, occurred just days after Mr. Donnelly completed three years of a four-year robbery sentence at Joyceville Penitentiary in Kingston, Ont.
If ruled a dangerous offender, Mr. Donnelly would be given an indeterminate sentence which would be subject to periodic reviews to determine if he no longer poses a public risk.
