An eyewitness has come forward to reveal that a trans-identified male pedophile brutally assaulted a female inmate while housed in a women’s prison in British Columbia, Canada. The woman sustained broken ribs during the horrific attack.
Adam Laboucan, who is Canada’s youngest dangerous offender, was handed a rare indeterminate sentence after being convicted of the violent rape of a 3-month-old infant. Sometime in 2018, Laboucan began to identify as transgender and changed his name to Tara Desousa. It was around this time that Laboucan was transferred into the Fraser Valley Institution for Women (FVI) in Abbotsford, which features a unit for mothers and infants.
The Mother-Child Program at FVI takes place in a house comprised of facilities such as a shared kitchen, lounge and bathroom, as well as multiple bedrooms. It is situated within a compound of similar housing units, arranged to look much like a neighborhood.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Laboucan has been observed leering at and making aggressive remarks towards the children at the FVI Mother-Child unit, leading to anger and concern from the female inmates.
Reduxx spoke with women’s rights advocate Heather Mason, herself a former inmate, who has been documenting instances of trans-identified males being transferred into women’s prisons in Canada. Mason has been instrumental in bringing to light several cases of violent male criminals abusing or antagonizing incarcerated women.
According to Mason, Laboucan “would stare in the windows of the [Mother-Child] house and always be loitering around it,” a situation which caused the women to feel anxious and afraid for the safety of the young children in the Mother-Child Program.
In 2018, soon after he was transferred into FVI, a female inmate responded to Laboucan’s disturbing behavior by defending another woman and her baby, demanding that he desist in his threatening conduct and calling him a “pedophile.”
It was at that point, explains Mason, that Laboucan “picked her up, threw her, and then charged at her once she was on the ground and continued the assault.” After prison guards intervened, the female inmate who had been attacked was punished by being placed in segregation for “inciting” his assault against her. This is despite the fact that she had suffered from multiple fractured ribs.
Speaking to Reduxx, a witness to the assault recalled the incident.
“[She] actually had broken ribs. I was on the inmate committee at that time, and the guards wouldn’t do anything except blame the woman for instigating the fight because she called Tara a pedophile,” the inmate, who will be referred to as Angela to protect her privacy, says.
“I talked to the warden and said, ‘this is a proper term that Tara will be referred to in the public, so why is it okay for Tara to beat this woman for it and have no consequence?” she added.
Angela decided to come forward to confirm the attack, which had previously been vaguely cited in an April 2018 Parole Board decision denying his appeal for release. According to the Toronto Star, Laboucan was found to be “unable to manager [his] anger after [he flung another inmate by her hair, then kicked her in the face.” The decision referred to Laboucan with feminine pronouns.
Additionally, the Parole Board had sympathetically highlighted Laboucan’s Indigenous heritage as a mitigating factor in his violent behavior.
“The board found that you have experienced negative intergenerational effects as a result, and acknowledged the linkage between your involvement in the criminal justice system and a number of elements in social and family history, including your substance abuse issues.”
As part of her reason for coming forward, Angela recounted another incident she had witnessed in which a different trans-identified male transfer, known as Coco Tallulah, beat a female inmate so horrifically that she suffered a miscarriage. The assault occurred in 2020, and Tallulah was transferred back to a men’s prison in 2021.
“As a mother who had her child in prison, I feel that having all these sexual predators there with babies and kids is insane, like Tara,” said Angela. “He shouldn’t be in a women’s prison. Maybe they could make a trans or gender-neutral prison, but to put them in a woman’s prison doesn’t make sense.”
She added: “The violence that happens to women from these men in jail is ridiculous. The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) doesn’t do anything to stop it and blames the women as aggressors in almost every situation.”
In 1997, Adam Laboucan sexually assaulted a three-month-old baby boy in Quesnel, British Columbia. Laboucan was 15-years-old at the time and had been hired to babysit the child. The infant was so brutally injured by the attack that he had to be flown to Vancouver, 410 miles away, to undergo reconstructive surgery.
After committing the horrific assault, Laboucan “mutilated himself and ate his own flesh,” according to news reports.
During the trial, an expert witness stated that Laboucan displayed “everything from transsexual to pedophilic tendencies.” A forensic psychiatrist who examined Laboucan testified that even he believed himself to be a danger to the public. “He said he was not planning a life of crime, but he felt he had no way to control the flood of violent, murderous fantasies,” Dr. Ian Postnikoff told the B.C. Supreme Court.
The forensic psychiatrist said that he believed intensive treatment would be necessary. “With the history and severity of the offenses of Mr. Laboucan, it’s difficult to say how long his treatment would last,” he said. “He’s not a regular sexual offender. I would say it would be a very long time, possibly years. I would be very, very concerned to hear that Laboucan would be released into the community in the near future.”
According to a 1999 news report by the CBC, clinical psychologist Dr. Steve Sigmond testified in court that when he examined Laboucan in 1997, the teen had also admitted to drowning a 3-year-old boy in Quesnel in 1993. Laboucan was 11 when he allegedly committed the killing, and no charges were ever lodged against him because under the law, an accused must be at least 12 years old.
Laboucan filed a request for temporary leave from Fraser Valley in order to attend a cultural ceremony in Vancouver hosed by the Circle of Eagles Lodge Society. According to the Circle of Eagles website, their purpose is to “support Indigenous Brothers and Sisters leaving federal institutions and those dislocated from society, to reintegrate into Community by providing respectful holistic services and culturally safe spaces.”
Laboucan has unsuccessfully applied for temporary leave from prison several times, with the Parole Board deferring to his dangerous offender status. However, federal case managers have reportedly argued that Laboucan should be granted escorted temporary releases in order to help him move towards public reintegration.
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