Global Courant
Notorious serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo was transferred to a medium-security prison in Quebec this week.
Bernardo has been at the Millhaven Institution near Kingston for ten years, and before that he was at Kingston Penitentiary – both maximum security prisons in Ontario.
His new placement is at La Macaza Institution in Quebec, in the Laurentians region northwest of Montreal.
The reason for Bernardo’s transfer has not been released.
Timothy Danson, a Toronto attorney who represented the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, who were raped and murdered by Bernardosaid Corrections Canada notified him of the move earlier this week.
However, he said none of his questions about the cause of the move were answered. Corrections Canada cited Bernardo’s privacy rights in response, Danson said.
When he notified the French and Mahaffy families, he said it was “very difficult and very distressing” to recapture all the horrific memories.
The Canada Correctional Service couldn’t say why the convicted murderer was movedbut it said “public safety” is the “most important consideration” in any decision.
“While we cannot comment on the details of an offender’s case, we assure the public that this offender remains in a secure facility, with appropriate security perimeters and controls in place,” a spokesperson said on Friday.
“It is important to note that this offender is serving an indefinite sentence, meaning there is no end date to his sentence.”
Bernardo was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering two teenagers, 15-year-old Frenchman and 14-year-old Mahaffy, in the early 1990s near St. Catharines, Ont.
