MANDEL: Paul Bernardo's fourth parole hearing delayed to January
· Toronto Sun
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Killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo — a.k.a. Paul Teale — will have a few more months to rehearse his latest attempt to slip from what were supposed to be his lifelong chains of imprisonment.
And to torture the families of the girls he murdered once more.
Following public outrage that Bernardo was going to have his fourth hearing in eight years in October – this time triggered by the once-every-two years requirement due to his dangerous offender designation – the families’ lawyer has been informed the parole board is delaying the proceeding at La Macaza medium-security prison in Quebec until January because there are documents that still must be reviewed.
It sounds like they’ve been shamed into finally doing the proper due diligence lawyer Tim Danson has been demanding for weeks.
Declared a dangerous offender
When the Crown applied to have the convicted killer declared a dangerous offender in 1995, Superior Court Justice Patrick LeSage considered a voluminous record of evil: there was the evidence presented at the trial he presided over, including the horrific tapes Bernardo had recorded of his torture, rape and murder of Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15, in the picture-perfect Port Dalhousie home he shared with his partner-in-crime Karla Homolka.
There were the victim impact statements from many of the 14 women that Bernardo, as the Scarborough rapist, attacked and threatened with death, with heartbreaking details of how he gleefully raped the young women – many in their teens – anally and vaginally by knifepoint after they got off the bus at night.
A woman, 14 at the time she was raped, told the judge: “If there’s one thing I can accomplish is writing this letter (so he can be) put where he belongs for the rest of his life.”
There were the psychiatric reports by experts who diagnosed Bernardo as a sadistic psychopath.
‘You require to be restrained’
LeSage heard it all and after more than three decades, rereading his conclusion, his definitive words ring true to this day: “The behavioural restraint that you require is jail. You require it, in my view, for the rest of your natural life. You require to be restrained, so that you will (be) restrained, and I will say something that is not common or popular, but I believe you require it as punishment for what you have done.”
What a novel idea the judge expressed – that Bernardo deserved to be punished for life for his sick litany of crimes.
“Your conduct fits all categories of dangerous offender,” LeSage told him. “I would conclude that even if I did not have all the psychiatric evidence, which simply validates and confirms what anyone, meaning no disrespect to the psychiatrists, but what anyone would know about you. You are a sexually sadistic psychopath.
“The likelihood of you being treated is remote in the extreme.”
Case must be reviewed every two years
Based on all the information he had, LeSage designated Bernardo a dangerous offender to serve an indeterminate sentence – meaning it has no fixed end date. That designation remains for life but the parole board must review his case at least once every two years.
Danson says he’s been engaging in an “extensive” email correspondence with the Parole Board of Canada reminding them that before considering any kind of release, the legislation requires them to review all expert reports and trial transcripts from that period as well as more current and comprehensive psychiatric evidence.
So more than their usual namby-pamby opinions from parole officers with no actual expertise.
Hopefully Danson’s message got through – and hence the delay.
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It is a reprieve for now, but a January date still comes far too close to the November 2024 hearing where the Mahaffy and French families had to once again face their daughters’ killer and explain why he should never see the light of day. News in the Toronto Sun last week of this fourth parole bid has been met with widespread anger and demand for change.
“I must have received more than 400 letters after the Sun story,” their lawyer said. And the families he represents suddenly didn’t feel so alone.
“It is the public support,” Danson said, “that gives them the strength to carry on when they feel most vulnerable and in a state of despair.”