B.C. Corrections is warning the public about a high-risk sex offender released from prison in the Nanaimo area.

John Ambrose Seward, 27, was sentenced to five years in federal prison for a series of violent sexual assaults in Port Alberni between April and September 2009. He was released on Thursday.

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In a public notification, B.C. Corrections said Seward has “maintained a pattern of predatory and opportunistic violent sexual offending.”

Women between 15 and 55 years of age are at risk, the notification said.

Seward was convicted in 2010 of three counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual assault with a weapon. He stalked his victims and the level of violence increased with each attack.

In one case, he dragged a sex worker into an alleyway and choked her.

In another assault, he forced a woman to perform a sex act at knifepoint as he threatened to kill her. Later that day, he stabbed an 18-year-old woman in the buttocks with a sharp object.

Seward is five-foot-seven and 161 pounds. He is aboriginal and has brown hair and brown eyes.

Under the conditions of his release, Seward is not allowed to be alone with anyone younger than 16, to possess or carry a weapon or imitation firearm, or to go to public parks, swimming pools, daycare centres, school grounds or playgrounds.

He also must abstain from alcohol or drugs and can’t enter any liquor store or business that sells alcohol.

Seward was ordered to provide his profile to the national DNA data bank and has a lifetime weapons ban. He will be listed on the federal sex-offender registry for 20 years.

B.C. Corrections asks anyone who sees Seward violating his conditions to call their local police department.