Victim Surcharge

Those little news items and updates that appear now and then in the newspapers are so revealing, yet so irritatingly opaque do arrest one's attention. Little details such as a court order to a vicious criminal that he must pay a trifling reparation being ignored. Reparation in the sense that, as a result of his dreadful crimes a fine has been imposed, payable to a group that defends victims' rights.

And this man had many victims. Some paid the ultimate price for having innocently elicited his notice. Others paid a price that they will live with forever, in terms of horrible memories and the trauma that results from the actions that caused those memories being lived and relived incessantly throughout their lives.

There was a time when debts to society were seen as a responsibility of the immediate family of the debtor if he/she did not pay them. It was a matter of honour, and obligation to society. Obviously, no one any longer assumes responsibility in the same way as honour once demanded it be done. The issue at hand here is that of a once-respectable and -honoured man who conducted himself with psychotic brutality.

Former high-flying Col. Russell Williams whose long career in the Canadian air force culminated in his being targeted for elite military office. A man who scrupulously discharged his official duties with distinction, and went on to spread terror in Ontario communities through his deadly predatory escapades. Events so thoroughly shocking they still make the news.

The news he garnered as a murderer, while commander of CFB Trenton base besmirched an honourable profession. His odious predations on young girls, his vicious rapes of vulnerable women whom he stalked and tortured, and his murder of two young women certainly set him apart as a psychopathic brute.

Sentenced to life in prison, he still receives his military pension, which is considerable. Ordered by the judge who sentenced him to pay $8,000 into a fund for Ottawa Victim Services, it seems with the busy life he now leads, to have eluded his attention. Drawing attention to the remorse he must be reeling under for the tragedies he foisted on innocent families.

"This is a guy who probably is never going to walk out of prison again, so he doesn't have much to lose", said Steve Sullivan, executive director of Ottawa Victim Services. "If an offender is choosing not to pay when he can, it raises questions about how remorseful he is and how aware he is of the harm he has caused."

The man did have a reputedly secure and mutually loving marriage. His wife is now suing for divorce, and seeking to distance herself from this monster, formerly her beloved. She is actively attempting, through her lawyers, to legally hold no financial responsibilities toward one of her husband's victims, suing him for compensation for the unspeakable.

Remorse and conscience and a sense of responsibility can be called upon to spur people who have been involved, however tangentially, in tragedies. Is it too far-fetched for the man's now-estranged wife to offer to pay that $8,000 to the victims' fund as a gesture of compassion for her husband's victims and the sad plight of those still living?

Questions, no answers.