Donnie Snook, the former Saint John city councilman and convicted child sex offender, has once again been denied parole.
Snook’s release would “pose an undue risk to the community,” the Parole Board of Canada concluded Friday.
The two-member board made its oral decision after a virtual hearing based in Abbotsford, B.C., where Snook is believed to be serving his 18-year sentence.
“You have a psychological risk assessment that suggests that with full compliance with all the conditions, and there are many, your risk would be manageable in the community,” board member Catherine Dawson told Snook, in the making of the decision.
He was rated as a low risk of general reoffending and a moderate risk of sexual reoffending, according to his parole officer, who supported his parole application.
“However, the board remains very concerned about the seriousness of your violations,” Dawson said.
“Your release plan, in the council’s view, is not sufficient to manage your risk at this time.”
Snook, 50, showed no reaction behind her COVID-19 mask.
Denied 2 years ago
The board concluded that Snook did not demonstrate a good understanding of his triggers, the crime cycle or the skills he could use to manage his risk to the community.
Much of her plan was based on avoidance, Dawson noted: avoiding everything from public restrooms where she might encounter boys to TV episodes of Little House on the Prairie that feature lots of boys.
This is the second time your application has been rejected. Two years ago, the parole board reached the same conclusion, that he would “pose an undue risk.”
The former youth ministry leader has been in custody since 2013. He was convicted after pleading guilty to 46 counts of child exploitation involving 17 boys as young as five, over a 12-year period.
His crimes include sexual assault, child pornography and extortion.
Eighteen years was “one of the longest sentences ever handed down in Canada” for such a case, the Crown prosecutor told reporters at the time.
Snook was also sentenced to an additional three months after he pleaded guilty to three counts of child exploitation involving a boy under the age of 14 in his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
His sentence does not expire until November 2030, but he became eligible for parole in December 2018 and full parole in June 2019, the parole board said.
Sorry, “doesn’t cut it”
“I could say ‘I’m sorry’ all day and it doesn’t cut it. It’s not enough,” Snook told the parole board Friday.
“I have to prove that I would never hurt another boy again, and that I recognize the hurt I’ve done; the hurt I caused them when I laid hands on them.
“So yes, I’m sorry, but more than sorry. Everything in me regrets what I’ve done.”
“Degree of cunning we don’t often see”
The panel peppered Snook with questions throughout the hearing, interrupting him at times and challenging some of his answers.
Board member Carol-Ann Reynen asked Snook how he justified his “disgusting” actions while he was committing them.
“I told myself that this was something that was pleasurable, that I wasn’t causing harm,” he replied.
Reynen said he had a “hard time” with that explanation. “If you thought this was true, why hide it?”
Snook, a former St. John’s city councilman and youth pastor, told the board that he has “worked hard to be honest with [himself] and with others…and be prepared for parole whenever that happens. (CBC)
Snook, he said, demonstrated a “level of cunning that we don’t often see.” He “addressed [his] whole life to offend,” and chose particularly vulnerable victims.
Snook said that was a fair statement. “It’s horrible that I masked it to the extent that I used helping vulnerable children and religion to do it.”
Porn helped to “normalize” his behavior and it became addictive, he said. “It’s never enough… It became this feeding frenzy, just a total loss of control.”
‘Not anymore’
There is “a pervasive sadness and regret” for his actions when he looks in the mirror, which, at one point, he would try to “run away from,” he said.
But “allowing them to exist, for me, is what motivates me to say, ‘never again.'”
Snook told the board he has “worked hard to be honest [himself] and with others … and be prepared for parole whenever that happens.”
His release plan included staying in the Abbotsford area, living in a halfway house and finding a “proper” job, possibly in the cleaning industry. Her support network includes her sister, she said.
“I look forward to taking the next steps in my life when given this opportunity.”
Snook has previously been granted several escorted temporary absences while serving her sentence, including a 2019 trip to San Juan to attend his father’s funeral i various departures in the Abbotsford, BC area to attend church.