The man who admittedly abducted a three-year-old B.C. boy and held him for four days last year told the boy's father he did not harm the boy and complied when he asked to come home.
On Thursday, a B.C. court was shown video of Randall Hopley speaking with a police detective and Paul Hebert, the father of kidnapping victim Kienan Hebert.
In the video, Hopley appears calm and collected and after determining exactly who Hebert is, he immediately says he wants to clear something up.
"I just want to set one thing straight -- and since these guys aren't going to listen anyways, it don't matter -- that I did not sexually assault your child whatsoever," Hopley says in the video.
Hopley, who turns 47 next week, pleaded guilty in May to abducting the child from his home in southeast British Columbia last September.
The abduction sparked a massive search that made headlines across the country until Hopley apparently brought Kienan home.
Hopley has pleaded guilty to abduction of a person under 14, as well as break-and-enter with intent to commit an indictable offence.
He pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, the third charge he was facing. The Crown is expected to stay that charge.
In the video shown Thursday, after the two are introduced, Hebert begins by thanking Hopley for returning his son.
"Well, he asked to go home and I said you can go home," Hopley replies.
He adds: "This is not to do with you and your family, this is not aggression or because of your family, your faith or whatever, it's nothing to do with you."
In 1985 Hopley was convicted of sexually assaulting a five-year-old boy.
During the interview, when Hopley was reminded of that incident, he said he would never have hurt someone Kienan's age.
"That was in the past. I don't want to go back there," he said.
"If I hurt a three-year-old, I would just take myself out in the bush and shoot myself," he said.
Hebert tells Hopley he believes him, adding "you took my son from me and I forgive you. I forgive you, ok?"
In 2007, Hopley was accused of attempting to abduct a 10-year-old boy. He says he abducted Kienan as an act of revenge against the system for what he says was the wrongful handling of his case in 2007.
Hebert was taken from his bed at his home in Sparwood in the early morning hours of September 6, 2011.
After his parents reported him missing, police and local residents launched a massive search operation. However, the boy was returned to his family four days later under mysterious circumstances, apparently unharmed.
Hopley, who was considered a suspect from the beginning, was picked up days later at an abandoned cabin in the Crowsnest Lake area, which is just across the border from B.C. and a short drive from Sparwood.
In the video, Hopley is asked how he feels about what he put the Hebert family through while Kienan was missing.
"I know what I put them through. It makes me very upset that I did something so stupid, basically," he says.
A sentence for Hopley is not expected any time soon.
The Crown has served notice that it wants to pursue a harsher approach to Hopley, and has asked that he undergo a 60-day psychiatric assessment to determine if he should be labelled a dangerous or long-term offender.
