Weapon charge withdrawn against Paul Bernardo

A minor weapon charge against notorious killer and serial rapist Paul Bernardo was withdrawn on Friday just weeks before an expected parole hearing that could see the dangerous offender released after more than 25 years behind bars, most in solitary confinement.

The prosecution said there was no reasonable prospect of convicting Bernardo of having a “shank” in his maximumsecurity cell — a five-centimetre deck screw attached to a handle his lawyer suggested was planted either by other inmates or guards.

“As you know, he’s reviled not by just people out of jail but by people in jail,” Fergus (Chip) O’Connor said outside court. “He had no knowledge of it being there. There were many opportunities for many other people to have placed it there.”

Dressed in a blue T-shirt, Bernardo watched the brief Ontario court proceedings via video link. He showed little outward emotion and politely answered brief questions as O’Connor began making his parole pitch.

His client, he said, has been of good behaviour in “very hard conditions of confinement” and has the support of his “loving parents,” who visit him regularly. Bernardo, O’Connor said, has made a “determined effort not to make up for what he’s done — for that can never be done — but to improve himself.”

Also known as the “Scarborough rapist,” the now 54-year-old Bernardo was convicted in 1995 of the firstdegree murders of two teen girls and numerous sexual assaults. He was labelled a dangerous offender and was not eligible for parole until he had served 25 years since his arrest in southern Ontario in early 1993.

Despite becoming eligible for day parole in February, he has never been out, spending almost all his time in protective custody or solitary confinement

Self-described activist Linda Beaudoin, of Mississauga, Ont., arrived at the courthouse hoping he would be there to see the placards she had attached to her car. Bernardo, she said, should not be in protective custody.