Federal prison service to appeal ruling
Posted Apr 30, 2010 06:05:38 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The federal prison service will appeal a court order that it must release the personal files of a teen inmate who committed suicide.
The Correctional Service says it’s contesting the Federal Court of Canada’s ruling to disclose the records of Ashley Smith.
Prison service spokeswoman Christa McGregor says it also wants the court to suspend the decision pending the appeal.
Federal Court Justice Michael Kelen ruled Thursday the Correctional Service broke the law by failing to release Smith’s records while she was alive.
Smith was just 19 when she choked herself to death with a piece of cloth at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., in October 2007.
Earlier that year she had requested her personal prison records, authorizing their disclosure to the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, an advocacy group for female prisoners.
