The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear arguments for release of prison records on serial killer Paul Bernardo.
The Supreme Court of Canada has decided not to hear arguments over the release of prison and parole documents concerning serial killer Paul Bernardo, ending a long-standing battle for the release of government records about Bernardo's conviction of murdering teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Both Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board of Canada declined to release records to the families through access-to-information requests, with the Federal Court of Appeal rejecting efforts to reverse these decisions. The appeal court stated that the requesters sought "everything from the trivial to the intensely personal," invading the prisoners' privacy. Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murders of French and Mahaffy in the early 1990s.