Paul Bernardo is deluding himself and others by suggesting he is a reformed psychopath who would never rape or kill again, said the lawyer for his victims' families, adding that Mr. Bernardo could never muster the medical evidence to support his outrageous claims.
"I think the general public should feel comfortable in the fact that Paul Bernardo will never ever be paroled," Tim Danson said Saturday in an interview.
Mr. Bernardo's comments from a 2006 jailhouse police interview appeared in newspapers, including The Globe and Mail Saturday after the transcript was filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal in connection with an application by a London, Ont., man. He is asking to be exonerated in a sex attack after being told by the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted that Mr. Bernardo confessed to it.
Mr. Bernardo's lawyer has said his client would be eligible to apply for parole in 2010 under the so-called faint hope clause, after serving 15 years for the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
The Ontario government has said it would fight any such attempt.
But Mr. Bernardo said he thinks he would make a good parole candidate. In the interview he said he used sex as a means of control to compensate for his deep-seeded insecurities, but that he has since changed.
"I used sex as a vice. Now, I work out. I wake up every day knowing I'm not psychopathic. I care about people. I cried during 9/11. I cried during Columbine," Mr. Bernardo said in the interview at Kingston penitentiary, where he is being held in solitary confinement.
"Anybody who is trained in the area understands that this is a psychopath at his best, trying to manipulate the system and do it in a way that appears to be cocky and confident," Mr. Danson, the lawyer for the Frenches and the Mahaffys, said Saturday.
"That's what makes psychopaths so dangerous, because generally they're very smart and they can be endearing, but there's an evilness that penetrates so deep that in the medical world that is recognizable."
Mr. Danson said he would be very surprised if Mr. Bernardo could medically prove he no longer harbours psychopathic tendencies and presents no threat to public safety.
Another factor leading Mr. Danson to believe Mr. Bernardo will never earn his freedom back is the fact that Mr. Bernardo was designated a dangerous offender, which allows someone to be jailed indefinitely.
"It's my legal opinion that before he's entitled to apply under the faint-hope clause, he has to deal with his dangerous offender designation," Mr. Danson said.
He said he believes as a dangerous offender, Mr. Bernardo would not be able to apply for parole. And even in the highly unlikely event that the parole board reconsiders the dangerous0offender designation, Mr. Danson said it's his opinion that no jury would ever OK his application under the faint-hope clause.
"Once a psychopath, always a psychopath."