An Aggravating Need

In the broad generalization of the lunatics running the insane asylum, this one fits quite neatly. A convicted murderer, who had shot and killed a policeman at a shopping centre, subsequently serving time for his having taken another human life, has complained that conditions within incarceration are unfair to him, contravening his constitutional rights and impacting on his health.

Peter Collins, serving a life sentence at Bath Institution near Kingston, for the murder of Nepean police Constable David Utman at Bayshore Shopping Centre in 1983, is rather upset that he is expected, like all other criminal incarcerees in federal prisons, to stand up in his cell during the daily inmate head count. A routine event to ensure that all is at it should be.

But Peter Collins requires sympathy as he insists he is suffering from chronic back pain. His chronic pain was aggravated by the need to stand when his name was called at roll call. Motorcycle and automobile accidents had evidently caused him grave back injuries. Which obviously did not hamper his criminal career.

Peter Collins was also suffering anxiety attacks over the possibility he might be charged with an additional offence for failing to comply with prison rules. This too was anguishing to the poor soul. Which led the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to award close to $10,000 to this poor man; $7,000 for "pain and suffering", and $2,500 as "special compensation".

Saner heads prevailed when the tribunal's decision was set aside when at the request by the federal government for a judicial review, Federal Court Judge David Near declared he could discover no evidence to suggest that the act of standing represented a primary source of Peter Collins' back pain.

Nor did the discerning judge agree with the tribunal that the actions of corrections staff represented wilful or reckless discrimination. He did award the long-suffering Peter Collins $500, reduced from $9,500.

Regretfully, that's a waste of $500.