EDITORIAL: Lock them up and throw away the key

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The good news is that a parole hearing scheduled for Oct. 20 for schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo has been postponed. The bad news is it will still go ahead — in January 2027.

Lawyer Tim Danson, who represents the families of Kristen French, 15, and Leslie Mahaffy, 14, who were brutally raped and murdered by Bernardo, says the Parole Board of Canada should reduce the frequency of the hearings from every two years to every seven years.

"It's almost as if the ink hasn't even dried from the last hearing two years ago," Danson told CHCH TV in Hamilton.

Bernardo is currently serving an indefinite life sentence for the two first-degree murders.

January's hearing will be the fourth time in eight years that the families of his victims will have to face their daughters' killer to oppose his parole.

In a similar vein, the Canadian Police Association (CPA) and the Toronto Police Association (TPA) are calling for reforms in the wake of a July parole hearing for cop killer Clinton Gayle. In 1994, Clinton shot and killed Toronto Police Const. Todd Baylis and wounded his partner.

Gayle was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced to two life sentences without eligibility for parole for 25 years.

The judge described Gayle as a "gun-toting crack dealer who displays a brazen contempt for the law and those who enforce it" and said he was incapable of remorse and likely to reoffend.

Now incarcerated in a minimum-security prison in B.C., Gayle was refused parole in July. While TPA applauded that decision, its members criticized the parole board for not providing them and the victims' families adequate time to attend the hearing. TPS also expressed concern about the frequency of parole hearings. Gayle has appeared before the parole board four times since his conviction.

"… the Parole Board of Canada continues to re-traumatize victims while accommodating a convicted murderer who killed and seriously injured two Toronto Police officers," said TPS.

When you rape and murder innocent children, you lose your right to live in civil society forever.

When you kill a police officer, whose job it is to keep this country safe, you should spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security prison and never see the light of freedom again.

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