A B.C. Supreme Court judge has released an audio recording of the 911 call made by child abductor Randall Hopley, informing police that he had returned the boy he had taken from his home four days earlier.

Hopley has pleaded guilty to snatching Kienan Hebert, then three years old, in the middle of the night from his home in Sparwood, B.C., in September 2011.

“Kienan Hebert has been returned to his home at 1:50 [a.m.] Mountain Standard Time,” Hopley told the 911 operator.

The operator asks who it is she’s speaking to, but Hopley wouldn’t identify himself.

“It doesn't matter,” he told her and hung up. The next day Hopley sent an email apologizing for what he'd done, an act that gave away his hiding place. He was arrested a short time later.

The abduction had sparked one of the biggest manhunts in B.C. history.

In police interrogation video, which was played in court in Cranbrook during Hopley’s sentencing hearing Wednesday and Thursday, Hopley insists he had no sexual contact with the boy during their days together.

Hopley has a record of sexual involvement with young boys, but he told police and the boy’s father, who was part of the interrogation, that he was sexually attracted to women.

The Crown has requested a 60-day psychiatric assessment of Hopley prior to sentencing.

The B.C. Supreme Court judge hearing the case has reserved judgment on the request and other matters related to Hopley’s sentencing.

With files from the CBC's Bob Keating