Man accused of killing girlfriend weeks after prison release has history of rape, violence
3 times, the Parole Board of Canada deemed Philip Toner too dangerous
for the community
Meghan Grant · CBC News ·
Posted: May 26, 2021 2:00 AM MT
Brenda Ware's body was found just over the Alberta border along Highway 93 in B.C. The man she'd been dating recently, Philip Toner, was arrested days later in the Okanagan region. Five weeks earlier, Toner had finished serving a prison sentence for rape. (B.C. RCMP)
Less than six weeks after Philip Toner finished serving a five-year sentence for raping a 15-year-old girl, he has been charged with killing his girlfriend, Brenda Ware, and dumping her body along the highway just across the Alberta border on the B.C. side.
5 years for drugging and raping a 15 y/o girl, when you have a history of violence, is an absurdly short sentence. The judge who sentenced Toner for that rape has blood on his hands.
CBC News has obtained parole documents showing the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) was gravely concerned about the risk Toner posed to women given his long criminal history of violence against girlfriends.
Two separate assessments of Toner while he was in prison found that, not only was he a moderate risk to commit violence against a spouse, he was also a moderate to high risk to reoffend sexually.
Last December was the third and final time Toner's statutory release — when an offender has served two thirds of their sentence and is given freedoms in the community under conditions — was revoked because of criminal behaviour while on release before his sentence expired on March 29.
After that date, the PBC had no control over Toner or the conditions imposed on him.
Now, Toner faces a charge of second-degree murder, accused of killing Ware, 35, somewhere in southern Alberta before transporting her body to Highway 93 in Kootenay National Park.
"The loss of a child is one thing, being murdered is another," said her mother, Karla Ware, from her home just outside Cremona, 80 kilometres northwest of Calgary. "It's like our future's been robbed."
The fire
Brenda's parents say they knew something was wrong on May 5 when they got a call that their reliable daughter hadn't shown up to work. Brenda lived just outside Cremona, on the family acreage, in the farmhouse where her mother was raised.
All the way home, Karla checked the ditches for her daughter's Jeep. But when she arrived home, the situation was much worse than she'd imagined. Brenda's front door was wide open, her house was on fire and she was missing.
Ware, 35, was a hairstylist in southern Alberta. She had begun dating Toner only weeks before she was killed.
(Submitted by the Ware family)
The search
The Wares' close family friend Kim Taylor, who operates an organization that finds missing animals, mobilized every resource available to begin a search. She had Jeep groups, quad parties, helicopters and people on horseback searching all the main and secondary highways.
Taylor, who described Brenda as a second daughter, also spread the word on social media and soon, she says, tips began "pouring in." She shared everything with RCMP. Brenda's body was found in B.C. northeast of Radium, the day after she went missing.
Police allege Toner left both the victim and her SUV along the side of the highway before hitchhiking to the Okanagan area, where he was arrested days later. After his arrest, RCMP returned Toner to Alberta. He will appear in Didsbury court next week.
The rape
Toner is no stranger to the justice system. In April 2015, he was doing drugs with a family member and a 15-year-old girl when he was asked to drive the teen to another location, according to the December PBC decision.
The pair stopped and when she rejected Toner's advances he gave her more drugs until she was incapacitated. Then he raped her.
In a victim impact statement filed at Toner's sentencing hearing for the sexual assault conviction, the girl's mother wrote that Toner's crime broke the family apart. She said his actions will "haunt" her daughter for the rest of her life.
Disruptive, abusive, violent
Toner was sentenced to five years in prison for the sexual assault and other offences. During his time in prison, Toner was found to be disruptive, disrespectful, verbally abusive and violent, according to the PBC decision. He was kicked out of a sex offender program, attempted to headbutt staff and got in fights with other inmates.
Toner's potential for successful reintegration into the community was assessed as low.
According to the decision, at the hearing, Toner told the board he has "the worst people skills anyone will see" and a "problem" with emotions.
Each time Toner was released, he was bound by a host of conditions including that he stay away from female children, drugs, alcohol and report all relationships with women.
Between June 2019 and December 2020, Toner was released from prison three times only to reoffend and have his release revoked each time because of issues with women, drugs and violence, according to the document.
'The wild animal'
At a parole hearing, held Dec. 7, 2020, Toner told the board members he would "never willingly hurt another person." "You said that the wild animal that you were is dead for years," wrote a board member identified only as K. Scott.
Toner, who has a history of domestic violence, was at the time considered a moderate risk to commit violence against a spouse, according to the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment. The board wrote that he had confined one of his ex-girlfriends against her will and then criminally harassed her for months after their break-up.
Another assessment prepared in advance of his release found he was at moderate to high risk to reoffend sexually. The assessment does not appear to be dated.
Ultimately, the board found Toner was too high risk to be in the community and revoked his statutory release.
Afraid to break up
Brenda's parents had never heard of Toner until he became a person of interest and then a suspect in her murder. Don and Karla call Brenda their angel; a daughter and friend who hoped to find a life partner.
"I think she was looking for a man like her grandfather or her dad and just couldn't find him," said Karla. Taylor says Brenda mentioned Toner only once in passing, about a month before her death.
But in recent weeks, Taylor says Brenda had told a couple of hairdressing clients she wanted to break up with her boyfriend but was afraid for her safety.
Brenda, says Taylor, was "trusting and so innocent. If there was a human Care Bear, that was Brenda. Her life was so good and she wanted everyone to feel that way," said Taylor. "She was extremely nurturing … I've never seen that girl angry."
In the warmer months, Ware could be found playing baseball or on the golf course where she either played or caddied for her father with whom she was incredibly close.
"This person who took her life, he doesn't really understand what he took," said Taylor. "This was somebody special."
EU, UK, and US join dozens of states in demanding answers over sexual abuse allegations against WHO staff
28 May, 2021 16:42
FILE PHOTO. World Health Organization at their headquarters in Geneva. © AFP / FABRICE COFFRINI
A joint statement from 53 countries has called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to address “deep concerns” about allegations of sexual abuse, exploitation, and harassment by staff at the agency.
The statement delivered to the WHO’s annual assembly by Canadian Ambassador Leslie Norton called on the UN agency to provide “credible outcomes” to address concerns about sexual abuse allegations made against its staff, and the failure of others to report their actions.
“Since January 2018, we have been raising deep concerns about allegations relating to matters of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment, as well as abuse of authority, in regard to WHO activities,” Norton said on Friday.
We expressed alarm at the suggestions in the media that WHO management knew of reported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment and had failed to report them.
The remarks on behalf of the 53 signatories come after a media report earlier in May highlighted internal emails from the WHO that suggested the organization’s management was aware of claims made against staff working in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2019.
The group statement said that the request for the concerns about abuse to be investigated in a “robust and transparent manner” had been discussed at a meeting of the WHO executive board’s program, budget, and administration committee last week. It also urged the WHO to make cultural changes throughout its organization so as to adequately tackle the problem.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to the joint statement, stating that the organization was “greatly disturbed by these allegations” and making clear that “any form of abusive behavior is totally incompatible with WHO’s mission.”
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First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., confirms bodies of 215 children buried at former residential school site
By James Peters CFJC Today
Updated May 28, 2021 9:04 am
A file photo of a monument dedicated to survivors of the Kamloops Indian Residential School
The band confirmed on Thursday that it has found the remains of 215 children buried on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Chief Rosanne Casimir says the presence of the remains was “a knowing” in the Tk’emlups community, but was confirmed this past weekend with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist.
The Tk’emlups Heritage Park is now closed to the public as work continues, with the potential that crews may find more remains.
The children, some as young as three, were students at the school, which was once the largest in Canada’s residential school system.
Casimir says it’s believed the deaths are undocumented, though the Secwepemc Museum’s archivist is working with the Royal British Columbia Museum to see if any records of the deaths can be found.
Casimir adds leadership of the Tk’emlups community “acknowledges their responsibility to caretake for these lost children.”
“We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc is the final resting place of these children,” said Casimir in a news release.
Work to identify the site was led by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Language and Cultural Department alongside ceremonial Knowledge Keepers, who made sure the work was done in keeping with cultural protocols.
Preliminary work began in the early 2000s.
“With access to the latest technology, the true accounting of the missing students will hopefully bring some peace and closure to those lives lost and their home communities,” said Casimir in a release.
Casimir says band officials are informing community members and surrounding communities who had children who attended the school. “This is the beginning but, given the nature of this news, we felt it important to share immediately,” she said. “At this time we have more questions than answers.”
Kamloops Indian Residential School operated from 1890 to 1969, with peak enrollment of 500 in the 1950s. The federal government took over administration of the school from 1969 to 1978, using the building as a residence for students attending other Kamloops schools.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said large numbers of Indigenous children either ran away from residential schools or died at the schools, their whereabouts unknown.
Toxic drug deaths surge among B.C. Indigenous people
By Staff The Canadian Press
Posted May 27, 2021 6:08 pm
A paramedic tends to an overdose patient in the St. Paul’s Hospital ambulance bay. Simon Little / Global News
British Columbia’s First Nations Health Authority says Indigenous people accounted for nearly 15 per cent of all toxic drug deaths last year although they represent just 3.3 per cent of the province’s total population.
Deputy chief medical officer Dr. Nel Wieman says 254 Indigenous people died from overdoses last year, which is nearly a 120 per cent increase from 2019.
She says the death rate began to rise after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a public health emergency.
Wieman says systemic racism is one of the barriers to accessing culturally safe mental health and addiction treatment and harm reduction services.
It's a coincidence that this story follows one on Indian Residential Schools. However, the coincidence has a basis in reality. Drug use, child sexual abuse, suicides have a lot to do with Residential School abuse and generational abuse that followed. Why this is not being studied is beyond me. It seems so obvious.
In order to combat the problem, the health authority has launched a range of treatment and healing options and supported expanded access to prescription alternatives.
There were 1,716 overdose deaths in B.C. last year, a record death toll amid the pandemic, where border closures disrupted the usual flow of illicit drugs and more toxic substances took their place.
Liberal MP ‘stepping aside’ after urinating on camera
during virtual House session
By Sean Boynton Global News
Updated May 28, 2021 8:11 am
The Liberal MP who was caught naked on camera during a virtual House of Commons session last month says he is “stepping aside” from some of his parliamentary duties after being exposed once again.
In a statement Thursday, William Amos said he was attending a virtual, non-public House session Wednesday evening when he urinated “without realizing I was on camera.”
The Pontiac, Quebec MP said he will be “stepping aside temporarily” from his committee assignments and his duties as parliamentary secretary to Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne “so that I can seek assistance.”
He said he will continue to serve his constituents as MP in the Liberal caucus.
“I am deeply embarrassed by my actions and the distress they may have caused anybody who witnessed them,” he said.
Apparently, he wasn't too distressed or embarrassed by his first exposure of himself, or there wouldn't have been a second.
Last month, a picture of Amos completely naked in his office during a virtual session of Parliament was leaked to the media shortly after the incident occurred, quickly making international headlines.
The incident sparked a rebuke by the Speaker of the House after Bloc Quebecois MP Sébastien Lemire admitted to taking the screenshot. Lemire apologized but has said he was not the one who leaked the image to the press.
The speaker rebuked someone for taking a screenshot but not the pervert who exposed himself in virtual parliament?
Amos also apologized, saying he had been caught changing into his work clothing after going for a jog. He said his video was accidentally turned on, and said the incident was an “unfortunate error.”
And if you believe that, can I interest you in the tropical island I have for sale on the Labrador coast?
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