A registered sex offender has been charged with assaulting a child at the Yellowknife Public Library last month.

Bobby Kudlak, 35, was charged with sexual assault and failing to comply with his probation conditions as a result of a June 16 incident at the downtown library, Yellowknife RCMP said.

Kudlak was on probation at the time, having served part of an 18-month jail sentence for fondling a young girl at a Wal-Mart store on June 6, 2008.

Under the terms of his probation, Kudlak was prohibited from being anywhere near children. He was also placed on the National Sex Offender Registry for the rest of this life.

But city officials say facilities such as the library are not warned about the presence of such offenders.

"If we get notice of people who have these orders against them, for sure, we would comply and put up notices for our staff and should the people appear we can call the RCMP," Grant White, the city's director of community services, told CBC News.

"Unless it's brought to our attention, we really won't know."

Court appearance set

Kudlak, now in police custody, is scheduled to make his first court appearance on July 14.

Kudlak has a lengthy history of sexual assault charges, including a conviction in 2002 for breaking into women's homes in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and attempting to fondle them in the middle of the night.

He pleaded guilty in the Wal-Mart case and was sentenced in November. In sentencing Kudlak, the presiding judge described Kudlak as opportunistic, attending the store specifically to prey on victims.

The Yellowknife library has been a place of concern for parents in the past. In August 2006, RCMP advised parents to keep a close eye on their children at the library after police received a complaint that a six-year-old boy had been physically attacked in the facility's washroom.