Canadian PRess
TORONTO, Canada (CP) -- Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he wants the province’s jails to implement mandatory checks for outstanding arrest warrants before setting prisoners free following the mistaken release of an inmate who’s now accused of abducting his ex-girlfriend.
“How could it be that in Ontario in one of our jails we don’t have a procedure in place that says before you release a prisoner who has served his or her time, you’re not checking first to see if there are any outstanding arrest warrants?” McGuinty said Tuesday before a caucus meeting.
McGuinty was reacting to a major blunder at a provincial jail in Thorold, Ont., that resulted in the release of an accused child abductor hours before the baby’s mother was dragged screaming from her home at knifepoint.
Police were still searching Tuesday for Amanda Stamp’s ex-boyfriend, Ricardo Alexander Lee, 28, who was alleged to have entered her apartment in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, before they both disappeared Sunday.
Lee was released from the Niagara Detention Centre on Sunday morning, even though York Regional Police had issued a warrant for his arrest. Police had also specifically asked jail authorities to hold him in custody.
“I’m very concerned about how this could have happened in the first instance,” McGuinty said.
Corrections Minister Monte Kwinter “is on top of this,” the premier added.
“We’re going to have to move as quickly as we can to ensure that that kind of a rule, that kind of protocol is in place.”
Kwinter said the mistaken release of Lee was the result of a “systemic problem.”