Toronto

The families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy are bracing themselves for what they know is going to be a difficult summer.

Round one for Doug French was hearing Karla Homolka has been volunteering at the school her kids attend. But round two is coming in a couple of months, when Homolka’s killer ex-husband Paul Bernardo makes his bid for parole — some 25 years after the murders of his daughter and Mahaffy.

French is not looking forward to it.

He can’t even understand why Bernardo’s getting one.

“I thought he was determined a dangerous offender? But everybody gets a parole hearing.”

French said he’s preparing for the worst.

“You mark my words, he will get a day pass or an afternoon pass or something,” he said. “I suspect it will happen.”

The thought of it makes him sick.

“You have to put up with it,” the dad said of the kind of breaks Homolka seems to keep getting and what he fears could be in store for Bernardo.

The victims’ family lawyer Tim Danson says the parole hearing is scheduled for August and “although we don’t know for sure it will happen then, I am preparing for it as if it will.”

The families will try to keep Bernardo locked up. But he will have served 25 years of his life sentences, which have a “dangerous offender” tag added to them.

“You can imagine what it puts them through,” Danson said of the families. “It makes them have to go through what happened to their daughters as if it was yesterday.”

Doug French said he and his wife, Donna, made a decision years ago to try to get on with some sort of life.

“The way we look at it, Kristen would not have wanted us to be hanging around her grave all the time and would want us to try to go on,” he said. “That is what we have tried to do.”

But it is not easy.

“No sir.”

Donna has “been doing an excellent job working with the Niagara police,” which he says keeps her busy and focused. He said he also tries to keep busy and keep his mind off the nightmare of his daughter’s murder.

That said, he has become accustomed to hearing details about Bernardo and Homolka and nothing surprises him.

Homolka volunteering at a Montreal school is an example of that.

“We were told there’s nothing that could be done about it,” he said. “They said she’s done her time, she served her 12 years for manslaughter, and she has her own kids now and that she’s a free woman.”

French said he does not begrudge Homolka’s children receiving their mother’s time and he understands her desire to want to be part of it.

But he wonders about the other parents’ children.

“Maybe if people are uncomfortable about it they can talk to the police,” he said. “I just hope they are checking on her. I doubt they are checking her enough. I just hope something doesn’t happen. If it does, maybe that’s when they will do something.”

In that scenario, it will be too late. It certainly is for his murdered daughter.

jwarmington@postmedia.com