Why was sexual predator William Shrubsall paroled?

It's a question with no easy answer: Why was sexual predator William Shrubsall paroled?

His victims, Nova Scotia's justice minister, the Crown attorney who prosecuted Shrubsalland the lead detective who worked his case have all expressed outrage aboutthe decision, but no official explanation has been offered to justify the controversial move.

After fleeing the U.S. in 1996 while on trial for sexually assaulting a teenagegirl,Shrubsalllived in Halifax under different aliases where hecommitted a string of violent crimes and brutal sex assaultsand stalked an ex-girlfriendbefore being apprehended in June 1998.

He was designated as a dangerous offender in 2001 and was given an indeterminate prison sentence.

But last week, the 47-year-oldwas deported from Canadaandturned over to American authorities. He's backin prison serving time for the sexualassaultin the 90s and is facing a trial for jumping bail, butcould be eligible for parole in less than five years.

A high risk to reoffend

In making its decision to grant Shrubsall parole, the Parole Board of Canadasaid it considered factors such as the "extreme violence" associated with hiscrimes, the sexual component present in certain cases andthe harm inflicted, and weighed it against things such ashis "satisfactory" institutional behaviour, completion of core programming and ongoing counselling.

"The psychologist concluded that you continue to present as a high risk to reoffend sexually and that there is no institutional programming that would reduce your risk to a point where it would be manageable in the community," reads the November 2018 decision.

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

In an email, parole boardspokesperson Holly Knowles said the specifics of an offender's case could not be discussed.

"As with all Parole Board of Canada decisions, the protection of society is the paramount consideration and the circumstances under which the offender is to be released is carefully considered in the overall risk assessment," she wrote.

No one talking

A request to interview the federal justice minister on the matter was denied. Department spokesperson Clia Canon instead suggested contacting Public Safety Canada Minister Ralph Goodale's senior communication adviser, Scott Bardsley.

In an email, Bardsley said Goodale was unavailable for an interview "due to the pressures on his time."

Bardsleyalso said it would not be appropriate to comment on the case.

"To obtain the rationale for the decision, please contact the parole board," he wrote.

'They've removed the problem to another jurisdiction'

One former victim of Shrubsall'ssaid she was told by a federal politician the parole decision was made for financial reasons. The victim, known only asT.C.,cannotbe identified due to a publication ban.

Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., who previously sat on the parole board for a three-year term, disputes that. He said parole board members are specifically trained that cost is not a consideration in the decision-making process.

Luciukwas notinvolved in any of Shrubsall's five parole decisions.

He said parole board members must think about whether a person can be safely reintegrated into the community and under what conditions. If this threshold can't be met, he saidthe parole board has to say no.

"In a sense, they've removed the problem to another jurisdiction," Luciuk told CBC Radio's Mainstreet.

"We were trained as members of the board not to do that in the sense that we would never deport someone to another country if we were not certain that the kinds of conditions and restrictions that we would want imposed on an individual like that here would be followed somewhere else."

Shrubsall,who changed hisname in prison to Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod,returns to court in Lockport, N.Y., on March 21.