The Evil That Deserves Human Rights Consideration

"I dare say that all of the people in Ontario and perhaps Canada have felt ... the revulsion of the crimes which you have committed Mr. Bernardo."

"[Crimes] of such a brutal nature as to compel the conclusion that your behaviour in the future is unlikely to be inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint. The behavioural restraints that you require is jail."

"You require it, in my view, for the rest of your natural life."

"You are a sexually sadistic psychopath. The likelihood of you being treated is remote in the extreme."

Judge Patrick LeSage, 1995

 

"The Parole Board of Canada also noted that other psychiatrists concurred with previous diagnosis of sexual sadism and psychopathy, thereby representing a 'significant risk for reoffending'."

"They felt that treatment would be unsuccessful given Mr. Bernardo's personality characteristics and sexual pathology'."

"Bernardo was found to be 'callous, glib, grandiose, cunning, deceptive, manipulative and a liar'. Further, the board found that Bernardo had a complete lack of understanding of the impact of his offending and violent and sadistic behaviour."

Tim Danson, lawyer for Mahaffy and French families

Canada’s prison service is now reviewing its decision to move notorious serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo from a maximum-security prison to a medium security facility. The transfer has sparked outrage across Canada’s political landscape. Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s.  CBC

Child serial killer, serial rapist, Paul Bernardo was sentenced by Judge Patrick LeSage to life in prison. Which in Canada generally means 25 years. However, in Bernardo's case, in reflection of his horrendous crimes where others could be sentenced to a 25-year life sentence, and could appeal to a parole board; his sentence distinctly noted that he could not do so. A man utterly lacking conscience and empathy for others, his persona reveals the classic signposts of a psychopath: devious, narcissistic, utterly lacking in empathy or remorse.

 

Before he was identified and placed behind bars he admitted to at least 18 rapes, at a time when this predator had a wide geographic area transfixed with fear over a serial rapist, women forced to take precautionary measures in the hope they would not become one of his victims. Matters took a turn when he -- with his willing wife's assistance -- kidnapped Leslie Mahaffy age 14, and Kristen French, 15, torturing them, raping them and murdering them. He raped and killed the young sister of his wife Karla Homolka.

When both were arrested and police were desperate to find hard evidence, Karla Homolka struck a plea agreement with police, directing them to a light fixture in the bathroom of their house where incriminating videos of her husband's crimes could be found. Her reduced sentence in exchange for her eagerness to provide evidence was, in fact, a miscarriage of justice. She is now free, has remarried and is raising children of her own, a woman who aided and abetted her husband's unspeakable crimes for her own pleasure.

 

Karla Homolka in St. Catharines July 6, 1993. (Frank Gunn/CP)

Recently the Correctional Services of Canada revealed that the hatefully notorious child rapist/murderer was being transferred to a medium-security institution from the maximum security prisons he was installed within for the past 28 years and public opinion was instant and furious. The families of the two girls he murdered were informed of the transfer the very day it took place. The Liberal government minister responsible for public safety and the prime minister denied any knowledge of the situation.

When the public and political uproar took place the commissioner of the Correctional Services noted that the CSA was simply following the law through an amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act made by the Liberal government in 2019 called the "least restrictive environment" possible that inmates must be placed in. The view is that criminals have human rights that must be upheld, irrespective of the severity of any reprehensible criminal acts they engage in; a 'progressive' view that eschews retribution.

Lawyer Tim Danson wrote to Anne Kelly, the CSC Commissioner reminding that Bernardo had demonstrated no remorse, and continued to demonstrate signs of being the "sexually sadistic psychopath" he was at his trial, even after 28 years of incarceration. In 2021 a Parole Board hearing concluded that Bernardo remained a sexual sadist with psychopathic traits; at high risk of displaying violent, sexual behaviour. "At both parole hearings, the PBC found that Bernardo showed no remorse, insight or empathy", wrote Danson to the commissioner.

Kristen French, left, was 15 and Leslie Mahaffy was 14 when they were kidnapped, tortured and killed by Bernardo. (Handout/The Canadian Press)

"This man is a monster, devoid of even a scintilla of humanity, decency, remorse or empathy."

"At the same time, he is skilfully cunning and manipulative."

Tim Danson

Psychopathic Murderers Bernardo/Homolka

"I would never allow mass murderers to be removed from maximum to medium security. [Serial rapist, killer Paul Bernardo should] rot [in maximum security] until he leaves in a coffin [instead of being transferred to a medium-security prison]."

"I think it is outrageous that Justin Trudeau is allowing this monster to have the privilege of going to medium security instead of staying in a maximum security where he should rot until he leaves in a coffin."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

Kristen French and LeslieMahaffy

 

Bernardo, known as the Scarborough Rapist and the Schoolgirl Killer, is a vicious psychopath who for years preyed on women, managing to sexually assault dozens of women, leaving the community in a state of dread and foreboding until he was finally unmasked. A young married man, his wife Karla Homolka, aided and abetted her husband's sexual rampages. Under the purview of Canada's infamously progressively 'woke' Prime Minister Justin Trudeau all the arms of government have been persuaded to follow the agenda he promotes.

When news was released last week that the sadistic rapist-murderer of two schoolgirls -- who had been kidnapped and tortured by Bernardo and his wife, 15-year-old Kristen French and 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy -- had been transferred from the maximum-security institution where he has been imprisoned for the past 22 years, to a medium-security prison, the public erupted in confusion and fury. Correctional Service Canada has refused to issue an explanation for the decision.

 

It has, instead, cited the need to defend this mass rapist-murderer's right to privacy. Nationally, experts in the justice system, critics and politicians representing the political spectrum expressed their outrage, all the more so that the department refuses to justify its decision to make that transfer, citing privacy legislation. Former governing officials of Correctional Service Canada have cited the need to be more transparent, that the move should be explained to Canadians.

 

Paul Bernardo arrested

Bernardo's conviction of the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the schoolgirls in the 1990s continues to resonate with the public. He had been convicted as well of manslaughter causing the death of Tammy Homolka, his wife's 15-year-old sister, who died after being drugged and sexually assaulted. In a case that shocked the nation, Tammy's older sister, Karla Homolka was actively involved in her husband's assault on her younger sister.

Karla Homolka's role in her husband's sexual depravity was well known. Police investigators had made a pact with her for a lighter sentence in return for her giving evidence and information that led them to a cache of videos hidden behind a light fixture in a bathroom of their house, that helped to convict her husband. Her 12-year sentence as an accomplice to her husband's horrible crimes was completed in 2005. She married, changed her name and place of residence and is now raising children of her own.

Controversy has arisen over Paul Bernardo's transfer from a segregation section of a maximum-security prison in Ontario to an 'open campus' type of medium-security prison in Quebec, prompting questions of whether increased security is seen as part of the punishment, or to ensure that other inmates can be restrained from assaulting or killing an inmate so generally loathed even by the prison population, much less deter the inmate himself from ever escaping the confines of the prison shielding the population from his presence.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaking in the Ontario legislature, said Bernardo in his opinion, should be on 23-hour solitary confinement, with the final hour that makes up the day directly within the general population, since "that's what should happen to this SOB". 

Karla Homolka, in custody

Classification to determine the seriousness of a crime -- mental disorder, potential for violence and the "dangerous offender" designation, determines where criminals wind up in the prison system. Issues such as risk of escape and public safety are taken into account when determining whether the placement is in tight security or medium security. Bernardo is diagnosed as a severe sexual sadist with high psychopathy scores. In Millhaven penitentiary where he was held since 2013 he attended sex offender treatment programming.

His life sentence has no specified end to his incarceration without parole; he will never have a legal right to leave prison, yet he has pleaded his case for parole twice to the Parole Board of Canada, pledging if ever released he would remain near his elderly parents and when they die, he will plan to leave Ontario. 

 

Homolka & another prisoner at Joliette

His wife began her sentence for manslaughter -- two counts for the deaths in 1991 and 1992 of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, with another two years added for her sister's death; at Kingston's maximum security Prison for Women.

She was subsequently moved to Joliette Institution for Women in 1997, a multi-level facility that includes minimum and medium security. In 2000 when photographs emerged of Homolka and two other violent offenders dressed in evening wear and posing before a birthday cake, public controversy of full-on outrage emerged.