NEW GLASGOW – A convicted sex offender has been granted the right to live within a community of his choice while still on parole.
Seventy–five-year-old Donald Francis MacLean has been residing in a community-based residential facility for the past four years, but on Aug. 26 he had the residency condition of his statutory release removed.
In a statement released by the National Parole Board, it says that MacLean is considered a low risk to reoffend. The board says once he is living in a community, he will be able to assist this wife with her mobility health issues.
Sylvie Blanchet of the National Parole Board said it can’t release the location of MacLean’s residence. However, she said, he will be under supervision and expected to uphold all the conditions of his parole. She said MacLean would have chosen the community he wanted to live in but the board conducts a community assessment to make sure all the services and programs are available in the area for him to successfully complete his parole.
MacLean is serving time for 26 convictions against 10 female victims of varying age ranges. Seventeen of the charges stem from incidents that took place against in the 1960s and early 1970s when he and his family lived in Canadian Forces bases in Oromocto and Point de Bute, N.B. The remaining charges are from incidents that occurred when he returned to Pictou County in the late 1970s. He was convicted in 1993.
The majority of the assaults took place against his four daughters and two step-daughters when they were between the ages of four and 19. Several charges of assault causing bodily harm and of buggery involved his first wife when they lived in New Brunswick. Other charges involved one of his friend’s daughter’s friends while they were living in the New Glasgow area.
MacLean’s parole ends in 2012 and the board says it is satisfied that with the removal of stipulations on where MacLean resides, he will not create any “undue risk to society by committing an offence.”
