A man accused of child-sex crimes in Thailand and Cambodia has admitted in a British Columbia court that police have reasonable grounds to fear he is a risk to the public.

A five-day court hearing had been planned for Orville Mader to determine if he posed a risk and should be held under a peace bond.

But in court last week, Mader abruptly reversed his plans to fight the peace bond and agreed to voluntarily be held under strict conditions in an Abbotsford court, said Crown prosecutor Wendy Van Tongeren Harvey.

"He admitted that police had reasonable grounds to be in fear," Van Tongeren Harvey said of the list of facts agreed to by the Crown and defence.

"But he wasn't prepared to admit substantively to anything beyond that."

Mader is currently free and has been living under similar conditions somewhere in the Lower Mainland for the last two years. He now faces the added requirement that he attend therapy for the next 12 months.

Mader also acknowledged there were court proceedings against him in Thailand and Cambodia, but he made no admissions of guilt or innocence, Van Tongeren Harvey said.

Arrest

He was arrested by police at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007 after slipping out of Southeast Asia shortly after the child-sex allegations were made again him in Thailand.

Details of what Mader is accused of in Asia have been placed under a court-ordered publication ban.

A lawyer for Mader could not be reached for comment.

Benjamin Perrin, assistant professor at the University of B.C. School of Law, said Mader's sudden reversal is significant.

He said he has not been found guilty in Canada, but there is "ample evidence of him constituting a reasonable threat."

Rather than charging Mader with the sex crimes he allegedly committed overseas -- which the Canadian government has the authority to do under sex-tourism laws -- they've held him under the peace bond, Perrin said.

"It's a very backward form of criminal justice," he said.

Van Tongeren Harvey said Mader can apply early to terminate the court order against him if a psychiatrist determines there's nothing wrong with the man.

She said unless new evidence is presented against Mader, it's very unlikely the peace bond would be renewed against him when the year is up.

Perrin said the Mader case is an astounding example of the Canadian justice system's failure to deal with a possible threat.

"Canadian authorities need to do more to protect children from sexual exploitation. Because it's not just foreign children we're concerned about here.

"Now we have a individual who is here at large in Canada, alleged to have committed sex crimes abroad and has now admitted that there are reasonable grounds to fear he will commit (an offence.)"

Canada's so-called sex tourism law has been in place since 1997, but Perrin said so far there have been just three convictions.

But the RCMP hasn't finished with the Mader investigation.

Legal options

Const. Rosiane Racine, with the Integrated Child Exploitation Unit, said police are looking at the many different options available in terms of laying possible changes.

She said the sex-tourism law would be one of those possibilities, allowing Canada to prosecute for an alleged crime that was committed in another country.

"They're definitely lengthy investigations, just by the mere fact there's another jurisdiction involved," Racine said.

Racine noted that Mader is being held by strict conditions.

"Our main concern is the protection of the children, no matter where they are," she said.

The other option would be to have Mader extradited back to Thailand to face charges.

Carole Saindon, with the federal Department of Justice, refused to say if that process was in the works for Mader.

"Extradition requests made to and from Canada are confidential, state-to-state communications," she said in an email response to questions.

Contrasting case

Mader's case is in direct contrast to another Canadian, Christopher Neil, arrested in Thailand around the same time.

Investigators picked up Neil after the unscrambling the face of a man sexually assaulting children in pictures posted on the Internet.

He's serving more than three years in a Thai prison.

Perrin said police and government don't have much time to make a decision on Mader.

"When you have serious criminal allegations, the way to deal with them is to lay the charge, have the evidence tested in court and have an independent and impartial determination of their guilt."