Last week, Ontario Superior Court Justice David McCombs ordered the taped interview of schoolgirl killer Paul Bernardo released to the public in its entirety.
The 2007 interview was held to question Bernardo about the 1990 murder of Elizabeth Bain. Robert Baltovich, at that time was awaiting his second trial for Bain’s murder and it was the theory of the defense that Bernardo was the killer. When the matter did come up for trial, the prosecution offered no evidence and Baltovich was acquitted.
The government opposed the release of the interview of Bernardo and asked the judge to only allow the media to broadcast or show select portions of the tape. The stated concern was that although the mainstream media would only air portions of the 31 minute interview for a short time, the entire tape would live forever on the Internet. Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley opposed the release of the entire tape because it might harm the families of the victims or “other parties generally” whoever they may be. Interim Opposition Leader Bob Runciman went further stating that the tapes should not be shown to give Bernardo any publicity (for the record, although we have had to put up with Karla Homolka’s musings for years, this was the first time the public had an opportunity to hear Bernardo speak).
No one has to be happy with what a judge decides – that’s the reason why we have appeal courts. But it is hard for anyone who has seen the entire tape or read the transcript to disagree with Judge McCombs’ statement that the tape was more “boring” than “chilling”. The only reference to Leslie Mahaffy, Kristen French and the victims of the Scarborough rapist was presumably the crimes against them were the “mistakes” that Bernardo admitted to having made in the past. There was nothing that Bernardo said during the interview that was salacious or demeaning to his victims and their families.
The tape was however, embarrassing to the government of Ontario and the administration of justice even though the NDP was in power at the relevant time. On the tape, Paul Bernardo complains to the two Toronto police officers, who were interviewing him that Peel Region police did not believe him when he confessed to having committed sexual assaults in their jurisdictions. Bernardo has done a lot of confessing since he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years and designated a dangerous offender. The killer’s rationale is that it will help him one day obtain parole for his crimes which he seems to view as “mistakes”.
Bernardo tells the officers that he is willing to take a polygraph about these crimes in Peel and then somewhat chastises the police for not giving Homolka a polygraph and therein lies the embarrassment. Despite his vicious crimes, Paul Bernardo is a living reminder of how the justice system bought cute little Karla’s line about having been a poor, battered wife who was forced to participate in horrendous crimes by her violent husband. Since Homolka made her infamous “deal with the devil”, we have learned that she was hardly the innocent victim of Bernardo that she so successfully convinced the former feminist government that she was.
Bernardo is naturally upset that he is sitting in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day while his ex-wife is sunning herself on some Caribbean island with her new family. The government has a vested interest in silencing Bernardo to prevent him from constantly reminding the country of how the justice system dealt with Karla Homolka. Knowing that if only snippets of the tape was released, the media would have restricted their broadcast to Bernardo’s long winded and meandering denial of having killed Elizabeth Bain. No one would have heard his polygraph comments and thought about the infamous deal with the devil.
With freedom of speech under attack in Canada these days, Judge McCombs deserves kudos for releasing the tape in its entirety.
