The man Prince George RCMP arrested this week in response to a complaint of an alleged attack on a 14-year-old boy has a history of run-ins with the law and escapes from the Colony Farm forensic hospital in the Lower Mainland.
Over four years beginning in September 2012, Matthew David Mikolajczyk, 30, had escaped the Port Coquitlam facility three times, according to media reports at the time.
He was once apprehended on Saturna Island following a struggled with RCMP and a four-hour search involving a dog, aircraft, an RCMP catamaran, officials from Canada Customs and Parks Canada, and several members of the Saturna community.
Police have also warned that he was a risk to himself and others because he had not received treatment while missing.
In addition to the one count of assault he faces from his arrest Thursday, Matthew David Mikolajczyk also faces three counts each of sexual assault and sexual interference of person under 16 from alleged Jan. 13, Jan. 19 and Feb. 28 incidents and one count of sexual assault from an alleged March 1 incident.
Police apprehended Mikolajczyk the day after receiving a call that a man confronted teen near Eighth Avenue and Ewert Street grabbed his arm and made inappropriate remarks.
Mikolajczyk is known to the courts and police in Prince George, as well as in Victoria, Vancouver and North Vancouver. His record includes a sentence of nine months in jail, issued in April 2003, for one count of assault, committed in North Vancouver and three months in jail and one year probation, issued in July 2004, for three counts of assault committed in Vancouver.
He has also been found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder and unfit to stand trial on other matters.
- with files from The Province
