6-11-2003 Canada:
The lawyer for a murdered pedophile says his jailers failed to protect him.
On Monday, guards found 46-year-old Richard Hatton dead in his cell at the Regional Detention Centre.
His cellmate, 29-year-old Daniel Labelle, is charged with second-degree murder.
Richard Hatton had been in the Regional Detention Centre since his arrest for violating the terms of a long-term supervision order.
Carol Sparling, a spokeswoman for the National Parole Board, says Hatton was being held awaiting a hearing to see if he should go back to federal prison.
"The breach had to do with being in an area where he was not supposed to be," says Sparling. "It had to do with a breach of an alcohol condition that he admitted to doing. There wasn't anything of involvement with children."
But Hatton did have a long history of criminal involvement with children. He had been convicted seven times for sexual offences against children.
That history made Hatton a target for other inmates, and officials at the detention centre should have known that, says his lawyer, Joshua Zambrowski of Kingston.
"There is a legal onus on any detention centre, prison or penitentiary to take reasonable care to protect all prisoners. And the fact that he was sharing a cell with some other offender is in my view irresponsible and negligent," says Zambrowski.
Hatton had spent about a month at the provincial detention facility, according to Zambrowski. He says his client, a federal inmate, should have been moved much sooner to a federal prison where he would have been safer. ..more.. by CBC News
Inquest probes pedophile's slaying by cellmate
6-19-2007 Canada:
Mentally ill inmates should be housed separately from other prisoners, a schizophrenic man who killed his cellmate four years ago told a coroner's inquest.
Daniel Labelle was testifying Monday via videoconference at the inquest in Ottawa into the death of 46-year-old Robert Hatton in 2003.
Hatton was intellectually disabled and had been convicted seven times for sexual offences against children, but was being held in the Ottawa Carleton Regional Detention Centre for a parole violation.
Labelle strangled Hatton in June 2003 and was later convicted of manslaughter. He's now serving an eight-year sentence at Penetanguishene Psychiatric Hospital.
Labelle, speaking from the hospital, said that before the slaying, he was scared that his cellmate, who weighed about 300 pounds, would try to rape him.
He said he asked repeatedly to be moved to another cell, but his request was denied.
Labelle apologized for what happened, and wanted the inquest to recommend that people with mental illness be housed separately.
Sister backs separate housing idea
As part of the inquest, Hatton's sister, Beverley Poste, spoke from Ottawa to Labelle during the videoconference Monday.
She agreed that people with mental illness should be housed separately, and said so should people who have been convicted of sex crimes.
"Both of those types of individuals are ill in one way or another and really need to be segregated from the rest of the population," Poste told the CBC following the day's testimony.
Pedophiles, in particular, are often targets of violence by other prisoners.
Poste said the inquest was useful, allowing her and Labelle to tell their sides of the story.
"I've explained to him … my brother that I knew and grew up with," she said after testifying.
She described Hatton as being "like a monster bird in a little wee nest."
Despite his enormous size, she said, "he didn't have a mean bone in his body. He couldn't be riled, he couldn't be angered and he certainly would have fallen over if Daniel had even pushed him."
But she said she was not angry at Labelle, as she recognized he was a sick man.
"He expressed horrendous anxiety about being celled with my brother and he didn't feel that the powers that be listened to him," she said. "He didn't anticipate murdering, and I honestly believe that."
The inquest is expected to end Friday. ..more.. by CBC News
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