'Horrified for the victims': Raitt says Shrubsall parole decision was wrong

The justice critic for the federal Conservatives says she is "horrified" by a decision to grant parole to sexual predator William Shrubsall.

Shrubsall, who committed a string of violent crimes and brutal sex assaults while living in Halifax, was deported from Canada last week and turned over to American authorities to serve time for a sexual assault there in the 90s.

"Literally, I said to myself, 'You've got to be kidding me.' I was that shocked," said Lisa Raitt, the Ontario MP who was appointed as justice critic last November. "I was horrified for the victims."

After fleeing the U.S. in 1996 while on trial for sexually assaulting a teenage girl, Shrubsall lived in Halifax under different aliases before being apprehended in June 1998.

The 47-year-old was serving an indeterminate prison sentence in Canada after being declared a dangerous offender in 2001. 

But last November, the Parole Board of Canada granted Shrubsall parole in a decision that included he be sent back to the U.S. to serve prison time for the sexual assault. He is also facing a charge of jumping bail.

The decision noted Shrubsall is "a high risk to reoffend sexually and that there is no institutional programming that would reduce [his] risk to a point where it would be manageable in the community." 

Niagara County district attorney Caroline Wojtaszek said although Shrubsall faces a potential maximum 14-year prison sentence, it's more likely that he'll be paroled in under five years.

Raitt said granting parole to Shrubsall shows the board is "weak on criminals."

"This is clear that this individual should not be seeing the outside of a correctional facility," she said. 

"And it's in great agreement right from the correctional officers to former parole board [decisions] to victims, that this is somebody that should not be on the outside and especially since they believe that he's going to reoffend."

The Parole Board of Canada's decision also noted that Shrubsall, who beat his mother to death with a baseball bat on the night before his high school graduation, has started seminary studies and his goal is to be ordained or get a doctoral degree.

The decision to grant him parole has been met with outrage by his victims, Nova Scotia's justice minister, the Crown attorney who prosecuted Shrubsall and the lead detective who worked his case.

Inquiries by CBC News to the Parole Board of Canada, the federal Justice Department and Public Safety Canada all failed to produce a clear answer on why Shrubsall was paroled.​

While in prison, Shrubsall changed his name to Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod. His next court appearance is scheduled for March 21 in Lockport, N.Y., on the bail jumping charge.