I went to listen to the annual multicultural lecture at the Chan Theatre at University of British Columbia last night. It was very interesting for me being a Canadian. My ancesters were among the very first to settle this great country. I always wondered why Canada's relations with its Aboriginal peoples was so much better than our neighbours.
Our neighbours and many other countries settled the same way treated Aboriginals like they were the interlopers. Aboriginals were pushed out of the way for immigrants to take the land and resources. Maybe not right away, but as soon as the European settlers became numerous enough to survive without help, they did so.
Canada's early settlers would not have survived their first winter without the help of the Aboriginal peoples in the area. That they did survive is a testiment to them, and a testiment to the Aboriginal peoples who taught them what was safe to eat, how to make a shelter from the cold, and so much more. Canada began right off the hop with a dialogue, a conversation with the native peoples.
Unfortunately, that dialogue no longer is helping the survival of Canada. My son, Derik Lord, is Metis. One of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Since he has been in prison for a wrongful conviction, I have learned many things about the ongoing conversations in Canada.
I have discovered that there is a very large discrepancy between the percentage of European descent prisoners and Aboriginal ones. White prisoners get out of prison faster, get programs to help them faster, and are generally better treated than aboriginals. Aboriginal prisoners are kept in prisons longer, denied parole much more often, treated like scum and not given programs that will help them.
The Correctional Investigator for the Correctional Service of Canada has been pointing these facts out to the government and to the citizens of Canada for more than 20 years. So what has changed?
The Correctionsl Service of Canada now says they have special programs for Aboriginal prisoners. Just try to get into one of them! Derik has tried many times and always gets turned down as not needing the programs. He finally gave up.
He was convicted with another young man at the same trial and they both received the same sentence. Life - 10 means a life sentence with parole eligibility after 10 years. The other young man, white, got out at his 10 year eligibility. One parole hearing is all it took. Derik, Aboriginal, has now been in for 17 years, with 5 separate parole hearings all turning him down for release. Is this system fair? I think not.
It is good to talk about the conversations between the various poeples who made Canada what it is today, but where are the conversations when it comes to punishment?
The Correctional Service of Canada has a mandate to get its prisoners back out of prison, to resume a normal life outside the bars without criminal activity. It is supposed to be concerned with correcting, not punishing. After this long time, it is no longer in a correcting mindset, it is in a punishment mode. Derik has maintained his innocence all these years. The fact that he has not confessed should not be used to keep him in prison forever, but it is happening. He has been told, orally and in writing, and I have been told, orally and in writing, that if he would just confess, he would get parole. They make it sound like it would be that easy. It is not.
I don't believe that one bit. If he suddenly changed and said he did it, then they would just a quickly put him in line for all those programs designed to correct his behaviour. I feel very strongly that those programs would make it worse for him, not better. He will not learn what he should not do, but what he should have done. He already knows what he should not do and one of those things is he should not lie.
I am very proud of the man my son has become despite the events that have brought him to this day. He is a caring man. He volunteered for many years as a peer counsellor for other prisoners, helping them in many ways. I know he has saved marriages, prevented suicides, prevented murders and helped some kick their drug habits. His strength shows in the fact that he did not get involved with the drugs which are rampant within Canada's prisons.
Where is the conversation that will get him released? No one on his case management team will speak to me now.
Coach Elouise
604-794-3218
Skype elouise.lord
Email: lordelouise@gmail.com
rascal60@shaw.ca
http://www.canadianinjustice.com for more of the story.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Evidence Really Can Lie
Beautiful pictures and calming music, Enya has the ability to soothe. The only issue is that sometimes one cannot be soothed.
The sloppiness of the Delta police investigation into the murders of Doris Leatherbarrow and Sharon Huenemann, which led to the arrest and convicton of the 3 teenage boys, is one of those things that will not let one be soothed. It was absolutely dreadful! The police coerced witnesses, made up evidence, misplaced evidence, lost evidence, hid evidence and mishandled the entire case.
The investigation of this terrible crime began as most do with the interviewing of family and neighbours.
In the police reports of the follow-up, Ralph Huenemann did not appear to be upset or surprised with the news brought to him by Saanich police officers. It had been noted that he showed "absolutely no remorse and did not appear to be upset with the news we brought." He was co-operative, offering to help by attending at Delta to speak to the police there and assist them in any way he could. Darren, however, was very upset. It is noted that he showed the "usual reactions and was very upset. "
On October 6, 1990, Saanich police also interviewed Amanda Cousins at her home in Victoria. Other than a two hour discrepancy between when she said that Ralph got home and when Ralph said that he got home, Amanda's story corroborated the story that Darren would tell about where he was that night. Amanda says that Darren picked her up about six-thirty, and that Ralph came home about 7 or 7:15. Ralph said that Darren and Amanda were there when he got home about 5 p.m.
Amanda told about picking up Derik and David downtown about 8 pm and driving around for a while, both in the downtown area, and in areas where Darren's parents were looking to buy a house. She tells of bringing David to Derik's house to pick up his bike, then driving around a while longer with Derik until around 10pm.
On October 6, 1990, in Delta, Darren Huenemann also gave a statement to police. This statement bears mostly on items of value which were or should have been in the house at the time. In it he also gave details of his mother's and his grandmother's wills as he knew them. This statement was hand written by detective Bill Jackson in Delta.
On October 7, the police continued investigating through the interviewing of neighbours. Two boys, the May boys who lived across the street, gave statements to the police describing two young men they had seen wandering around apparently lost on the evening of October 5, at around 6:30 pm. The descriptions which they gave were not closey linked to Derik and David, and actually had many features not consistent with the appearance of either of them. Both described men about 6 feet tall and white, about 20 or 21 years old. Greg May said that both men wore dark leather jackets. Neither Derik or David are that height. Neither could have passed for 20 or older. Derik had been asked for proof of age more than once at a movie theater showing a movie restricted to 17 or over. Neither Derik or Dave was wearing a leather jacket. At the time, Derik did not own a leather jacket, his jacket was a tan and white cotton one. I don't know about David Muir as I did not see him often. The only jacket I remember seeing him wearing was a jean jacket.
Charles Smith stated that he had seen one of the ladies inside the white car belonging to Mrs. Leatherbarrow at around 7:30 that Friday evening while he was closing his curtains. He thought that it had been Sharon Huenemann. He lived in a corner house across from the Leatherbarrow residence and had a clear view of the driveway and front of the house from his kitchen.
Two taxi drivers described passengers that they had picked up in Tsawwassen. One described a pair of young men that had called for a taxi from the ferry terminal around 5 p.m., and the other described two men he picked up at the mall and took to the ferry terminal around 6:30 or 6:45. The descriptions were sketchy, and inconclusive.
Photo lineups with the May boys and the taxi drivers were not done until November 7, quite a length of time later. None of the identifications were for certain. All of the photos that were pointed out were described as "sort of looks like one", or "someone like him", or one had a similar haircut, or other similar phrasing. Many people would not take such sketchy possibilities as certain and irrefutable evidence, but it appears that Delta police officers do.
Derik was interviewed at our home on October 16. At that time, he told police of his whereabouts and the whereabouts of Darren as he knew them. Derik described the evening as it went quite uneventfully in Victoria. This statement corroborated an earlier one given by Amanda Cousins, and again was corroborated by the statement of Amanda Cousins dated November 16, 1990, (and dated again as typed January 9, 1990).
In yet another statement a half hour later that same evening, Amanda Cousins again says that the boys, Derik and David were picked up downtown by her and Darren at about 8:30 p.m. on October 5. One might question why two statements were taken about a half hour apart by the police.
The way that Derik was interviewed on October 16, 1990, upset some neighborhood children, especially a seven year old girl who had been playing with Derik and Dawn (my younger daughter) and a couple of other young children in the back yard. I complained to the Saanich Police about the handling of the interview.
On November 6, 1990, Sgt. Gordon Tregear, representing the Saanich police, and Detective Wiliam Jackson, representing the Delta police, came to our house to speak to Dave (my husband) and I about the method used to question Derik. In answer to the complaint I had made, they said that it was normal procedure to put someone in the car to talk to him and not to go into the house as they had been invited to do by Derik. Apparently, it was also normal procedure to question children without at least one of the parents being present. During the hour or so that they were here, the police officers spent very little time explaining the events upon which the complaint was based. Most of this time was spent telling us all about the crime scene, all the gory details of the murders and the messing up of the house. Everything from the size of the footprints found in the house to the violence of the scene. They told us about the use of common kitchen rubber gloves, kitchen knives to cut the throats of the victims, the size 10 men's tennis shoe footprint that was clear enough to photograph, both women had been hit with a bar of some sort, money was taken, traveler’s cheques were taken, no jewelry was taken, purses were dumped out, the key once hidden outside was found inside, there were four pieces of lasagna, there were beets in a pot on the stove, there were beans in another pot on the stove, and the room was very hot, making time of death difficult to determine. They said that there was one little detail that they were keeping secret in order to catch the criminal. We found out what that one was a couple of days later from Ralph Huenemann. Ralph told us about the cloths over their faces. Quite a bit of effort was put into trying to convince me to talk to Darren about taking a lie detector test to prove his innocence.
By November 16, it had become obvious that the police investigation was centering only on the three boys and not in any other direction. The boys had noticed that they were being followed everywhere. Derik had been approached at work and brutally questioned about Darren and his relationship with him. He had been accused at work and frightened on more than one occasion. Both phone lines were tapped. Neighbours phoned in to the Saanich police often to complain about strange cars with people not belonging to the neighborhood sitting in them staying for long periods of time in the area. One of Dawn's friends, Stacey, had dropped by to see her, but no one was at home that afternoon. On her way home, she stopped by a brown car parked across the street and down the block a ways and told the two undercover officers sitting in the car that they could go for coffee and doughnuts because no one was home. I really had become a joke with all the kids!
Once it seemed that the investigation was stalling on the boys, Ralph Huenemann suggested that they should be represented by legal counsel. He researched a few firms, then hired the firm of Considine and Lawler. Considine was representing Darren, Lawler was to represent Derik. Ralph was paying the bills for this legal advice. We were invited over to the Huenemann residence at Ten Mile Point to meet with Lawler in November. His advice to us was to remain calm, keeping his phone number handy just in case, and to refuse to take any lie detector tests.
Something very odd happened when we arrived at the Huenemann house to meet Ralph for the first time. While we were waiting for the lawyer, Ralph talked to us for a while about how he had been through this before. His first wife, Joanne, had been murdered and at that time he had been a suspect in her death. He told us that is why he wanted to make sure that the boys both had representation. This had also been offered to the Muirs for David, but they had decided to go with another firm in town.
Later, we discovered that Joanne's death was listed by police as a death from exposure caused in part by use of drugs and alcohol. Her body had been found at a picnic table in a campground in Manning Park. We spoke to the park ranger who had found the body. "It was the strangest thing. She looked like something had struck her and thrown her straight back from the bench." He had never forgotten the way she looked. Fear was etched on her face. Her book was lying open on the table. Her coffee mug, only partly emptied, was still on the table too.
Police reports did not suggest murder.
But Ralph Huenemann had told us that both his wives had been murdered, first Joanne, then Sharon.
Go to our website http://www.canadianinjustice.com to learn more about this very strange set of events.
Now I need to go listen to Enya again so I will be able to sleep tonight.
Coach Elouise
604-794-3218
Skype elouise.lord
Email: lordelouise@gmail.com
rascal60@shaw.ca
I will be back with more on Monday!
The sloppiness of the Delta police investigation into the murders of Doris Leatherbarrow and Sharon Huenemann, which led to the arrest and convicton of the 3 teenage boys, is one of those things that will not let one be soothed. It was absolutely dreadful! The police coerced witnesses, made up evidence, misplaced evidence, lost evidence, hid evidence and mishandled the entire case.
The investigation of this terrible crime began as most do with the interviewing of family and neighbours.
In the police reports of the follow-up, Ralph Huenemann did not appear to be upset or surprised with the news brought to him by Saanich police officers. It had been noted that he showed "absolutely no remorse and did not appear to be upset with the news we brought." He was co-operative, offering to help by attending at Delta to speak to the police there and assist them in any way he could. Darren, however, was very upset. It is noted that he showed the "usual reactions and was very upset. "
On October 6, 1990, Saanich police also interviewed Amanda Cousins at her home in Victoria. Other than a two hour discrepancy between when she said that Ralph got home and when Ralph said that he got home, Amanda's story corroborated the story that Darren would tell about where he was that night. Amanda says that Darren picked her up about six-thirty, and that Ralph came home about 7 or 7:15. Ralph said that Darren and Amanda were there when he got home about 5 p.m.
Amanda told about picking up Derik and David downtown about 8 pm and driving around for a while, both in the downtown area, and in areas where Darren's parents were looking to buy a house. She tells of bringing David to Derik's house to pick up his bike, then driving around a while longer with Derik until around 10pm.
On October 6, 1990, in Delta, Darren Huenemann also gave a statement to police. This statement bears mostly on items of value which were or should have been in the house at the time. In it he also gave details of his mother's and his grandmother's wills as he knew them. This statement was hand written by detective Bill Jackson in Delta.
On October 7, the police continued investigating through the interviewing of neighbours. Two boys, the May boys who lived across the street, gave statements to the police describing two young men they had seen wandering around apparently lost on the evening of October 5, at around 6:30 pm. The descriptions which they gave were not closey linked to Derik and David, and actually had many features not consistent with the appearance of either of them. Both described men about 6 feet tall and white, about 20 or 21 years old. Greg May said that both men wore dark leather jackets. Neither Derik or David are that height. Neither could have passed for 20 or older. Derik had been asked for proof of age more than once at a movie theater showing a movie restricted to 17 or over. Neither Derik or Dave was wearing a leather jacket. At the time, Derik did not own a leather jacket, his jacket was a tan and white cotton one. I don't know about David Muir as I did not see him often. The only jacket I remember seeing him wearing was a jean jacket.
Charles Smith stated that he had seen one of the ladies inside the white car belonging to Mrs. Leatherbarrow at around 7:30 that Friday evening while he was closing his curtains. He thought that it had been Sharon Huenemann. He lived in a corner house across from the Leatherbarrow residence and had a clear view of the driveway and front of the house from his kitchen.
Two taxi drivers described passengers that they had picked up in Tsawwassen. One described a pair of young men that had called for a taxi from the ferry terminal around 5 p.m., and the other described two men he picked up at the mall and took to the ferry terminal around 6:30 or 6:45. The descriptions were sketchy, and inconclusive.
Photo lineups with the May boys and the taxi drivers were not done until November 7, quite a length of time later. None of the identifications were for certain. All of the photos that were pointed out were described as "sort of looks like one", or "someone like him", or one had a similar haircut, or other similar phrasing. Many people would not take such sketchy possibilities as certain and irrefutable evidence, but it appears that Delta police officers do.
Derik was interviewed at our home on October 16. At that time, he told police of his whereabouts and the whereabouts of Darren as he knew them. Derik described the evening as it went quite uneventfully in Victoria. This statement corroborated an earlier one given by Amanda Cousins, and again was corroborated by the statement of Amanda Cousins dated November 16, 1990, (and dated again as typed January 9, 1990).
In yet another statement a half hour later that same evening, Amanda Cousins again says that the boys, Derik and David were picked up downtown by her and Darren at about 8:30 p.m. on October 5. One might question why two statements were taken about a half hour apart by the police.
The way that Derik was interviewed on October 16, 1990, upset some neighborhood children, especially a seven year old girl who had been playing with Derik and Dawn (my younger daughter) and a couple of other young children in the back yard. I complained to the Saanich Police about the handling of the interview.
On November 6, 1990, Sgt. Gordon Tregear, representing the Saanich police, and Detective Wiliam Jackson, representing the Delta police, came to our house to speak to Dave (my husband) and I about the method used to question Derik. In answer to the complaint I had made, they said that it was normal procedure to put someone in the car to talk to him and not to go into the house as they had been invited to do by Derik. Apparently, it was also normal procedure to question children without at least one of the parents being present. During the hour or so that they were here, the police officers spent very little time explaining the events upon which the complaint was based. Most of this time was spent telling us all about the crime scene, all the gory details of the murders and the messing up of the house. Everything from the size of the footprints found in the house to the violence of the scene. They told us about the use of common kitchen rubber gloves, kitchen knives to cut the throats of the victims, the size 10 men's tennis shoe footprint that was clear enough to photograph, both women had been hit with a bar of some sort, money was taken, traveler’s cheques were taken, no jewelry was taken, purses were dumped out, the key once hidden outside was found inside, there were four pieces of lasagna, there were beets in a pot on the stove, there were beans in another pot on the stove, and the room was very hot, making time of death difficult to determine. They said that there was one little detail that they were keeping secret in order to catch the criminal. We found out what that one was a couple of days later from Ralph Huenemann. Ralph told us about the cloths over their faces. Quite a bit of effort was put into trying to convince me to talk to Darren about taking a lie detector test to prove his innocence.
By November 16, it had become obvious that the police investigation was centering only on the three boys and not in any other direction. The boys had noticed that they were being followed everywhere. Derik had been approached at work and brutally questioned about Darren and his relationship with him. He had been accused at work and frightened on more than one occasion. Both phone lines were tapped. Neighbours phoned in to the Saanich police often to complain about strange cars with people not belonging to the neighborhood sitting in them staying for long periods of time in the area. One of Dawn's friends, Stacey, had dropped by to see her, but no one was at home that afternoon. On her way home, she stopped by a brown car parked across the street and down the block a ways and told the two undercover officers sitting in the car that they could go for coffee and doughnuts because no one was home. I really had become a joke with all the kids!
Once it seemed that the investigation was stalling on the boys, Ralph Huenemann suggested that they should be represented by legal counsel. He researched a few firms, then hired the firm of Considine and Lawler. Considine was representing Darren, Lawler was to represent Derik. Ralph was paying the bills for this legal advice. We were invited over to the Huenemann residence at Ten Mile Point to meet with Lawler in November. His advice to us was to remain calm, keeping his phone number handy just in case, and to refuse to take any lie detector tests.
Something very odd happened when we arrived at the Huenemann house to meet Ralph for the first time. While we were waiting for the lawyer, Ralph talked to us for a while about how he had been through this before. His first wife, Joanne, had been murdered and at that time he had been a suspect in her death. He told us that is why he wanted to make sure that the boys both had representation. This had also been offered to the Muirs for David, but they had decided to go with another firm in town.
Later, we discovered that Joanne's death was listed by police as a death from exposure caused in part by use of drugs and alcohol. Her body had been found at a picnic table in a campground in Manning Park. We spoke to the park ranger who had found the body. "It was the strangest thing. She looked like something had struck her and thrown her straight back from the bench." He had never forgotten the way she looked. Fear was etched on her face. Her book was lying open on the table. Her coffee mug, only partly emptied, was still on the table too.
Police reports did not suggest murder.
But Ralph Huenemann had told us that both his wives had been murdered, first Joanne, then Sharon.
Go to our website http://www.canadianinjustice.com to learn more about this very strange set of events.
Now I need to go listen to Enya again so I will be able to sleep tonight.
Coach Elouise
604-794-3218
Skype elouise.lord
Email: lordelouise@gmail.com
rascal60@shaw.ca
I will be back with more on Monday!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunshine on my shoulders
A long time favorite song. I used to sing along to it when my family was whole. I remember so well the day that Derik was arrested. I had been trying to keep him calm for a few weeks by telling him things like: "You were not there, they can't arrest you without some evidence. Don't worry!"
In retrospect, that was a very bad idea.
The two women were murdered on the Thanksgiving long weekend, October 5, 1990. There was a lot of press and media attention because of the size of the estate, over $3 million dollars. Since the husband of the younger victim was a close personal friend of the then Lieutenant Governor of BC, David Lam, there was considerable political pressure on the Delta Police to solve it fast and to leave Ralph Huenemann alone.
http://www.canadianinjustice.com/
I remember the day we learned about the events of October 5/6, 1990. On Sunday, October 7, 1990, Derik was getting ready for work at the local Kmart when a friend of his from school called him with a very strange request. Jack wanted to know if we had a subscription to the Times Colonist newspaper. We did not. Jack then explained that he had received a wierd call from Darren Huenemann telling him that he would not be at school on Tuesday, and that his family had made the front page.
Derik and Darren had known each other at school for a year or so, and had visited occasionally at each other's homes. I knew Darren somewhat. A very nice, usually well dressed young man, always polite to adults, crazy sense of humour. The boys shared an interest in games and music, so they would hang around together at school, sometimes.
My husband went down to the local 7/11 to get a copy of the paper. There it was on the front page. Two gastly murders. Derik was very upset. He told me that Darren must be devastated because he and his mom had a relationship like ours. She wanted to know where he was going, and kept an eye on his activities. He described the relationship between Darren and his mother as close, like ours. Then he cried.
Darren was not available when Derik called him to express his feelings, because he was in Tsawwassen with his step-father, Ralph.
I had met Darren's mother, Sharon, we got along well, but had only met a couple of times. I had never met his grandmother, Doris Leatherbarrow, although Darren had spoken often about her. Seems she had his life and education planned out for him.
All moot now of course! They seemed to be close, too, from what Darren said.
We wondered how it had all come about, but just wanted to try and help Darren if we could. The next couple of months were pretty awful!
This was the beginning of the rest of our lives, never to be the same again.
Checkout the website for more details, and I will be back!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
What's up Now?
A friend sent this video to me and it made me think about the fight we have been having with Canada's prison system.
http://www.canadianinjustice.com/
Just took another look at the site and realized it has not been updated for a while. It is time to get back to the truth of the matter. It is time to bring the truth out again to the public eye. I am getting tired after seventeen years of arguing and going to court after court to try to gain his release. I need some help.
You could be a prisoner in Canada.
1 to 11/2 percent of prisoners in Canada are innocent.
Check out the American Justice Institute web page on wrongful convictions in Canada and around the world.
That headline is still as true as it was 17 years ago when the whole thing started.
Let's go back and revisit it in the cold light of a new day. Stay wih me for a while and go over it all again. Maybe something will come to you that we can do to get further along with this.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The Trouble with Snow
I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I left the house I had spent the night at, late for meeting up with prison staff, and with a new route to follow that I had not tried before, and discovered it was snowing!!
So far, every time it has snowed this winter, something has gone awry. This time I was concerned about my son’s parole hearing. That is where I was headed. Following the new route Steven had given me, I actually made it to the appointment with 30 seconds to spare. Despite the blowing snow and the winding twisty road I drove.
Made it safely, so now we wait. The prison staff put us upstairs in the main office building, in the board room, to wait. About a half hour later, Derik's IPO (internal parole officer) Marion Higgins, brought him upstairs to sit with us. We just had a general conversation in which Marion told us a bit of the history behind the place. William Head Institution had first been built as a quarantine area for new immigrants from the Orient. Many Chinese and Japanese immigrants did not make it out of there. Those who were or became ill and died are buried in a corner of the property that is maintained as a Canadian Heritage site by the Federal Government. I felt it would be very interesting to take a walk around there, but this was not the day.
The prison began as a minimum security camp with no fences, then became medium security wit a three roll barbed wire fence cutting it off from the rest of the penninsula. Now, it is a minimum again, but the fence is still there. Parole hearings are a regular occurrence as prisoners serving long sentences, like Derik, has the right to have one every 2 years once they reach a minimum length of time served. For Derik, that time was 10 years. He has now been in prison for 17 years, but has not gained any release yet. We were hoping for something this time, but not really expecting anything like full parole.
Because the prison is located on the tip of a penninsula, we walked down to the visiting room, where the hearing was being held, in the rain, not snow. The 3 members of the board were already seated. The assistant got the IPO from Derik's previous institution on the phone and then the members of the press (6) and the relatives of the victims (8) were brought in and seated behind us. We had to face the board, his current IPO sitting with us, and were not permitted to turn around to see the people being seated behind us. There was a significant distance between the groups to prevent any possibility of interaction. Derik had pointed out to the prison staff that one of the relatives had physically assaulted me at one of our many court appearances, so that was one reason for the caution, and the larger room than was normally used.
The hearing started as it usually did with the board members wanting to discuss his crime. That part was naturally short as Derik still maintains that he is innocent. Even after such a long time in prison, he will not make up a confession. He is maintaining his innocence while assuring his continued incarceration. The next part was longer. Going back to his childhood, they wanted to know if his father was controlling. One statement they questioned is that I have to call him before I leave the house. I explained later, when I had a chance to speak, that we both did that. In our opinion, it made sense that someone know where you are in case something happened. At the very least, it gives a starting point for a search should someone not make it home. We kept in close touch with each other and with our children for that reason. I am sure some people might call us controlling, but we always knew where our children were and when to expect them home.
The chairperson also appeared to fixate on the fact that, as a boy, he carried a pocket knife. Derik explained that based on his rural upbringing for the first 13 years of his life. Nearly every boy carried a pocket knife in a rural area. You never knew when you might want to whittle a sling shot fork, or cut some binder twine to save an animal's life, or any other emergency fix. I don't think that the city people really understood that.
Once they were done questioning Derik, then it was my turn to speak on his behalf. I tried to give an eloquent testimonial on his progress since going to prison, expecially in the past few years. Derik had ended the questioning telling them about the programs he took, the effort he made to understand his behaviour, the self help books he read and worked through, the issues he had identified on his own and worked through, and the relationship he had been building with his fiancee over the past 9 years. I did an overview of the incarceration as a ping pong type of relationship building. They would tease him with a program and then say he did not fit the profile and yank it away. This happened 14 times. Most times he was screened out because he already had the skills they were trying to teach. For a couple of them, he was screened out as not being violent enough, and not willing to confess to the crime for which he is innocent. Finally, they had to give him one. Ottawa had to override the requirements to get him in there, but Derik worked very hard at getting the most benefit from the program as he could. However, the Parole Board did not believe that it was enough. Following my input, 2 of the relatives read impact statements. One was a very emotional short statement about the love lost when one sister died. The other one was a rant. He told the board that Derik should get out only after he received training to get a job and had the conditions put on him to repay the costs of his imprisonment.
Then Derik had the last word.
We were all ushered out in the reverse order than being ushered in, once again to avoid any contact between the 2 groups of people. The waiting began again. Suddenly, the phone rang and we were once again being summoned to the meeting room. There we got the decision. Day parole denied. Full parole denied.
I requested direction from the board members, and the only response was to continue with making improvements like he had been most recently. Once again, we left, ushered out in groups. We had another half hour visit with Derik and his IPO while the relatives were leaving the grounds. It was a good unwinding session. Both of us were on the verge of tears, relief that it was over and release of the tension.
Stopping just past the prison property, we gane an interview to CBC and GlobalTV news, once again standing in the rain as it changed back into snow. Arriving at the climic where my daughter works, it was now hailing ferociously. And again, following a great dinner with my daughter and granddaughter, I was driving in a near blinding snow storm.
A 30 minute drive, a 60 minute wait, an hour and a half ferry ride, and I was on the highway home. Surprise! Another snow storm on this side too! Two hours of that messy highway driving and I was finally back home. Snow and ice the entire way!
It is now April 2. No longer April Fools Day. At 2 am the snow is stopping and turning again to rain. Thank God that Day is over!
Elouise Lord,
mother, teacher, paralegal, writer, speaker, driver, facilitator, etc.
PS, next time it snows, I am not going anywhere!
http://tinyurl.com/b5op9q
So far, every time it has snowed this winter, something has gone awry. This time I was concerned about my son’s parole hearing. That is where I was headed. Following the new route Steven had given me, I actually made it to the appointment with 30 seconds to spare. Despite the blowing snow and the winding twisty road I drove.
Made it safely, so now we wait. The prison staff put us upstairs in the main office building, in the board room, to wait. About a half hour later, Derik's IPO (internal parole officer) Marion Higgins, brought him upstairs to sit with us. We just had a general conversation in which Marion told us a bit of the history behind the place. William Head Institution had first been built as a quarantine area for new immigrants from the Orient. Many Chinese and Japanese immigrants did not make it out of there. Those who were or became ill and died are buried in a corner of the property that is maintained as a Canadian Heritage site by the Federal Government. I felt it would be very interesting to take a walk around there, but this was not the day.
The prison began as a minimum security camp with no fences, then became medium security wit a three roll barbed wire fence cutting it off from the rest of the penninsula. Now, it is a minimum again, but the fence is still there. Parole hearings are a regular occurrence as prisoners serving long sentences, like Derik, has the right to have one every 2 years once they reach a minimum length of time served. For Derik, that time was 10 years. He has now been in prison for 17 years, but has not gained any release yet. We were hoping for something this time, but not really expecting anything like full parole.
Because the prison is located on the tip of a penninsula, we walked down to the visiting room, where the hearing was being held, in the rain, not snow. The 3 members of the board were already seated. The assistant got the IPO from Derik's previous institution on the phone and then the members of the press (6) and the relatives of the victims (8) were brought in and seated behind us. We had to face the board, his current IPO sitting with us, and were not permitted to turn around to see the people being seated behind us. There was a significant distance between the groups to prevent any possibility of interaction. Derik had pointed out to the prison staff that one of the relatives had physically assaulted me at one of our many court appearances, so that was one reason for the caution, and the larger room than was normally used.
The hearing started as it usually did with the board members wanting to discuss his crime. That part was naturally short as Derik still maintains that he is innocent. Even after such a long time in prison, he will not make up a confession. He is maintaining his innocence while assuring his continued incarceration. The next part was longer. Going back to his childhood, they wanted to know if his father was controlling. One statement they questioned is that I have to call him before I leave the house. I explained later, when I had a chance to speak, that we both did that. In our opinion, it made sense that someone know where you are in case something happened. At the very least, it gives a starting point for a search should someone not make it home. We kept in close touch with each other and with our children for that reason. I am sure some people might call us controlling, but we always knew where our children were and when to expect them home.
The chairperson also appeared to fixate on the fact that, as a boy, he carried a pocket knife. Derik explained that based on his rural upbringing for the first 13 years of his life. Nearly every boy carried a pocket knife in a rural area. You never knew when you might want to whittle a sling shot fork, or cut some binder twine to save an animal's life, or any other emergency fix. I don't think that the city people really understood that.
Once they were done questioning Derik, then it was my turn to speak on his behalf. I tried to give an eloquent testimonial on his progress since going to prison, expecially in the past few years. Derik had ended the questioning telling them about the programs he took, the effort he made to understand his behaviour, the self help books he read and worked through, the issues he had identified on his own and worked through, and the relationship he had been building with his fiancee over the past 9 years. I did an overview of the incarceration as a ping pong type of relationship building. They would tease him with a program and then say he did not fit the profile and yank it away. This happened 14 times. Most times he was screened out because he already had the skills they were trying to teach. For a couple of them, he was screened out as not being violent enough, and not willing to confess to the crime for which he is innocent. Finally, they had to give him one. Ottawa had to override the requirements to get him in there, but Derik worked very hard at getting the most benefit from the program as he could. However, the Parole Board did not believe that it was enough. Following my input, 2 of the relatives read impact statements. One was a very emotional short statement about the love lost when one sister died. The other one was a rant. He told the board that Derik should get out only after he received training to get a job and had the conditions put on him to repay the costs of his imprisonment.
Then Derik had the last word.
We were all ushered out in the reverse order than being ushered in, once again to avoid any contact between the 2 groups of people. The waiting began again. Suddenly, the phone rang and we were once again being summoned to the meeting room. There we got the decision. Day parole denied. Full parole denied.
I requested direction from the board members, and the only response was to continue with making improvements like he had been most recently. Once again, we left, ushered out in groups. We had another half hour visit with Derik and his IPO while the relatives were leaving the grounds. It was a good unwinding session. Both of us were on the verge of tears, relief that it was over and release of the tension.
Stopping just past the prison property, we gane an interview to CBC and GlobalTV news, once again standing in the rain as it changed back into snow. Arriving at the climic where my daughter works, it was now hailing ferociously. And again, following a great dinner with my daughter and granddaughter, I was driving in a near blinding snow storm.
A 30 minute drive, a 60 minute wait, an hour and a half ferry ride, and I was on the highway home. Surprise! Another snow storm on this side too! Two hours of that messy highway driving and I was finally back home. Snow and ice the entire way!
It is now April 2. No longer April Fools Day. At 2 am the snow is stopping and turning again to rain. Thank God that Day is over!
Elouise Lord,
mother, teacher, paralegal, writer, speaker, driver, facilitator, etc.
PS, next time it snows, I am not going anywhere!
http://tinyurl.com/b5op9q
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
