Paul Bernardo: Lawyer for victims’ families to testify after transfer fallout
Global News
Tim Danson, the lawyer representing the families of Paul Bernardo’s murder victims, will speak to MPs Wednesday about the transfer of inmates.
The lawyer representing the families of Paul Bernardo’s murder victims will speak to MPs Wednesday about the transfer of inmates and the rights of victims of crime.
Tim Danson is set to appear before the House of Commons public safety and national security committee at 4:30 p.m. eastern. He is scheduled to be joined by Tennille Chwalczuk, Laura Murray and Marcia Penner – childhood friends of Kristen French, one of Bernardo’s murder victims.
Benjamin Roebuck, the federal ombudsperson for victims of crime, is also scheduled to appear at the committee, which is studying the rights of victims of crime, reclassification and transfer of federal offenders.
The study comes in the wake of the fallout over Bernardo’s transfer to a medium-security prison earlier this year. Bernardo, 59, has been serving a life sentence for the kidnappings, tortures and murders of teenagers French and Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s.
He and his then-wife Karla Homolka also killed her younger sister, Tammy Homolka. Bernardo had been living out his sentence in maximum-security prisons until this year.
Bernardo’s transfer to the medium-security prison in Quebec set off a firestorm across the country and engulfed the Liberal government in controversy.
Part of the controversy surrounded the notification of the victims’ families; Danson previously told Global News he only learned about this transfer after it happened.
Anne Kelly, commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, appeared before the committee on Monday and stressed there was “absolutely no talk” of moving the notorious killer and serial rapist to an even lower security level.