A 48-year-old Cedar man is facing sexual-assault charges involving four young girls and police believe there may be more victims. Gary Alan McIntyre was released after his initial arrest in September, when parents of a 14-year-old girl reported inappropriate sexual contact while she visited McIntyre’s family at his home in Cedar, about eight kilometres southeast of Nanaimo.

McIntyre was again arrested on: Jan. 7 on three additional counts of sexual assault, involving girls who range in age from seven to 14. He was released Monday following a bail hearing in provincial court in Nanaimo. Police are now alerting parents that their children may have been witness to or subjected to such behaviour if they were in his home. “We think there are more victims. The chances are extremely high,” said Nanaimo RCMP Const. Gary O’Brien.

All of the alleged incidents are reported to have taken place in the previous 18 months, with reports that McIntyre touched the genitals of the victims. No new allegations referenced incidents since September. In all of the incidents police say the children had a play date with McIntyre’s nine-year-old son. “This is a person who is drawing children into his home through using his son as the dupe,” said Crown counsel Jackie Gaudet in court on Monday.

“He poses a threat to any child while he is not detained.”McIntyre owns a house in Cedar with his wife but moved out after police searched his home, seizing computers and related equipment in late December. McIntyre is next scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 8.