Court rules woman not dangerous offender

EDMONTON — The Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled that a woman once described as one of Canada's most violent young criminals should no longer be designated a dangerous offender.

Ruling says appropriate sentence would have been 3 years Lisa Neve, 26, was designated a dangerous offender in 1994, which meant she could be jailed indefinitely. She became one of only two women in Canada labelled a dangerous offender.

In sentencing Neve in 1994, Justice Alec Murray of Alberta Court of Queen's Bench said that Neve, then 21, had a "severe, anti-social personality disorder which manifests itself in evil, violent and sadistic thoughts."

He also noted Neve's 22 criminal convictions since the age of 15 — offences including slashing a prostitute's neck, threatening an Edmonton lawyer and his children, and taking a fellow inmate hostage.

Chief Justice Catherine Fraser headed a three-member panel that took 15 months to examine Neve's case. The panel says in a statement that it was "not reasonable" for Neve to be ruled a dangerous offender.

Neve has been serving time at Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, a federal minimum-security jail in Maple Creek, Sask. She has served four-and-half years on a robbery conviction. The convicton normally carries a three year sentence.

The only other woman in Canada to be designated a dangerous offender was Marlene Moore, who committed suicide in a federal women's prison in Kingston, Ont., in 1988.