Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honour to be here today to speak to Bill C-479, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims).
I would like to first thank Mr. Sweet for inviting me here today to speak to you about Bill C-479, and for bringing forward this important legislation on fairness for victims.
I am the sister of a murdered victim, Darlene Prioriello. Since Darlene's murder, our family has had many occasions to feel revictimized. Some of these would include hearing the man who killed my sister brag about his bedroom with a doorknob that can be locked from the inside. Another example would be watching a video of Mr. Dobson being interviewed by the parole board, saying, “Time is easy to do”. It made us feel that our justice system is not punishing these offenders but simply housing them. It is like sending a child to their room and letting them know at the same time that they are still loved.
When David Dobson had his first parole hearing in April of 2007, I remember doing my impact statement and feeling so revictimized. At times I could only write a paragraph and then I'd have to stop. At times I would stop for hours, and sometimes it would take me weeks to be able to sit back down and do my impact statement. When I finished my impact statement, I called my mother to ask if she had completed hers. She said she couldn't get it started. She asked me to read mine to her, and as her daughter I felt I had to do something to help her, so I read mine to her, and she cried and she sobbed all through my reading of it. Then I sent her my impact statement afterwards, and I said, “Mom, personalize it and make it your own”. I felt like I needed to help her. I needed to do something for her.
I thought I lost a sister. Being a mother myself, there's no comparison between losing your sister and losing your daughter or your son. There's no comparing. I had to start my impact statement all over again.
Some weeks later my mother called and said she had finished her impact statement. She sent it back to me and asked me to read it over and give my opinion. Much of my original impact statement was there, but she turned my two-page statement into many pages. I couldn't believe that she had survived this, the stress, the heartache. My mother was hospitalized several times during the making—just during the making—of her impact statement due to having to relive the crime all over again and relive her daughter's death.
The entire family felt very helpless. We couldn't tell her that her health was more important than a statement or a parole hearing. She didn't see it that way. She saw this as something she had to do for her baby, for Darlene.
We had to then send our statements to the parole board for them to review, and then they'd send them to David Dobson, my sister's killer, for his approval. We were then asked to make changes to our statements as Dobson didn't like some of the things in our statements. We also got reminded that we must show respect for the killer at all times.
The impact statement should be about our feelings. It should be about what was taken from us. It shouldn't be about worrying about his feelings and his emotions. This is our impact statement, not his. When we talk about respect, respect is something that is earned. It's not something that should be demanded. It's not given; it's earned.
Where was my sister's respect when he brutally sexually assaulted her and beat her head into the ground with a concrete building block?
We found it also very victimizing that David Dobson got to read our statements, but we had to go into this parole hearing with no idea of what he was going to say, as we didn't get to see his statement. We didn't get any heads-up. We had no way to prepare ourselves emotionally for what we might hear in that hearing. My question would be, why after a brutal attack on a loved one that resulted in their death does it appear that the perpetrator of the crime is treated so well in our system? Remember: “Time is easy to do”, he said.
Before the hearing, we had been told that David Dobson knows he's not getting parole but that he said he wanted to see how the system works. He had no place to stay, if released, no job, no way to shelter or feed himself or care for himself. We went through hell and back for his entertainment because he felt that he needed to see how the system works.
Why does legislation allow this? Shouldn't this be re-examined?
At the hearing, my mother, my husband, my daughter, my uncle, and I sat together. David Dobson came into the room. He looked straight into the eyes of my mother and then into my eyes. I can't tell you how that felt. I felt his look take my breath away. I was looking into the eyes that last saw my sister alive. I was looking at the last face my sister ever saw as she begged and cried and pleaded for her life.
His eyes were so cold and empty of feeling. He sat in his chair, and shortly after, started to cry and cried continuously through the whole hearing. We felt that this was for the purpose of drowning us out as we read our impact statements.
At one point, David Dobson looked at my mother and said he was sorry, and my mother replied, “I don't believe you and I don't buy your tears for one minute.” One of the parole board members reminded her that she was not to speak to the inmates, but there was no direction given to David Dobson about speaking to my mother at this hearing.
I would like to think that the parole board would see how hard this is on one's family and demand that the killer show the same level of respect that we are demanded to show to him. Again, where was the respect for my sister when he was killing her? Before she died, he didn't show her any respect. The last act he committed was to pee on her. He called it the best urine he'd ever had.
Dobson made it a point to tell us during this hearing that he had hung a cross in a chapel in Darlene's memory. When we called the facility, they said that this was absolutely not true. We believe this was his way of getting a thrill, of reliving his crime. This is typical of a killer, to want to revisit the murder in any way possible. The hearing gave him that opportunity.