Albert Walker is an "evil" man and a "con artist" who "manipulated me and lied to me just like everybody else," his daughter says.
Sheena Walker, now 29, spoke out for the first time yesterday, years after coming to the nation's attention as a teenager. She said she was as "shocked" as most Canadians when her notorious father was allowed to return from Britain.
Mr. Walker was allowed to come back to Ontario last month to serve the rest of his life sentence for murder. He is understood to have said he wanted to be closer to his family.
But his daughter -- who, as a teenager, was forced to present herself to strangers as Mr. Walker's young wife -- said she would have preferred he lingered and died in an English prison.
"I believe that he poses a threat, that I need to protect my family from him," the mother of two daughters told the Kitchener-based CKCO-TV yesterday. She would not further discuss her children, now 11 and 9, during the interview with the CTV affiliate.
"I fear for my family's safety," she said, appearing in silhouette at an undisclosed location. She explained that she doesn't know when her father will be released, or whether he will try to contact her from prison. Mr. Walker, 59, is said to be very sick.
In 1990, he exerted nearly complete control over Sheena, as he took her away with him to England. At the time, he was a fugitive financier accused of bilking $3.2-million from his Canadian clients.
In Britain, he presented himself as a middle-aged husband and Sheena as his pretty young wife. The illusion of matrimony was given credence by two young daughters, who were born to Sheena in England during the mid-1990s.
The parentage has never been explained. The myth of the happy family was shattered in 1996 when police arrested Mr. Walker for murder. He was convicted of killing a television-repairman friend at sea, weighing the body down with an anchor and dumping it overboard. He then assumed his victim's identity.
Upon sentencing in 1998, the British court said Mr. Walker must serve at least 15 years before the possibility of parole. Corrections Canada has not said what his parole eligibility date is now that he is back under the Canadian justice system. His daughter fears he may try to step back into her life.
"I was under the impression that he'd be gone for a lot longer and I would have time to build a better life for my family -- just in order to protect them for the future and any threat he poses to us," said Ms. Walker, speaking to CKCO from Southwestern Ontario.
Her home is just a few hours drive from Millhaven Institute, a maximum-security prison where her father is jailed. She said she hasn't been in touch with him in years and "I don't want any contact."
She added that she has no idea where her father stashed the money from his Canadian clients all those years ago. "I don't know anything about it. He didn't confide in me, he manipulated me and lied to me just like everybody else," she said.
During his murder trial, Mr. Walker told court that he didn't want his daughter to come to England with him, but "she wanted to come and pleaded with me."
She was pregnant two years later, but he said at trial that he tried to comfort her about the situation: "All sorts of girls have children out of wedlock. Don't let it bother you."
He told the court that at times he had been "economical with the truth," but insisted that "I did not murder Ronald Platt, he was a friend of mine."
Sheena Walker was 22 when she took the stand against a parent who had stolen her adolescence. "My father suggested that because there was a small child, we should present ourselves as a couple," she told the court at the time, without going into details.
She also said that her father called her in Canada before his trial to urge her to not testify against him.
Ultimately, a jury that examined all of the evidence found that Mr. Walker was lying. The judge called the slaying a "carefully planned, cunningly executed" crime. He described Mr. Walker as a "plausible, intelligent and ruthless man posing a considerable threat to anyone who stands in your way."
Today, his daughter still feels that way. "I just feel powerless in the whole situation," she said, adding that no one consulted her about her father's return.
"I'm trying to put it behind me, but as I say, every time it comes up, I have to relive it," Ms. Walker said. She asked that the media respect her privacy.
"I believe he's a dangerous individual. I am scared of him and feel very threatened by his presence here in Canada," she said.
"I don't want any contact with him, I want to move on with the rest of my life and have some closure on this."