A 39-year-old Greater Victoria woman serving a life sentence for the 1997 murder of Reena Virk is back on day parole after having it revoked for three months.
In 2005, Kelly Ellard, who now goes by Kerry Sim, was convicted of second-degree murder in the drowning death of Virk.
Sim had her previous day parole, which was granted in 2017, revoked in August after consuming drugs and alcohol – which violated the conditions around being allowed day leave from a women’s prison near Abbotsford.
In a decision dated Oct. 28, the Parole Board of Canada granted Sim parole with three conditions imposed, including that she follow psychiatric treatment for anxiety and “other mental health issues” and must immediately report all sexual or non-sexual relationships and friendships or any changes in those relationships to her parole supervisor.
She must also not have any person-to-person contact with the father of her children, identified only as D.D., without supervision or written consent from her supervising parole officer.
In its decision, the board cited Sim’s acceptance of responsibility for previous parole violations, positive engagement in her rehabilitation programs and demonstrated “stability for the majority of [her previous] time in the community,” as justification to grant her parole once again.
Sim chose to waive her right to a parole hearing in order to maintain privacy for her children, chosing instead to have the parole decision based only on the material already before the board.
At the age of 15, Sim swarmed Virk with several other teens. Sim, along with a teenage boy, then held Virk underwater near a Greater Victoria bridge until she stopped moving.
Sim was convicted in 2005 after three trials. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the conviction in 2009.
Despite being a teenager at the time of the murder, she was given an adult sentence due to the nature of the offence. She was eligible to apply for parole in 2013 but didn’t apply until 2016 and was denied in her first attempt before being given was given permission to take temporary escorted trips to parenting programs and doctor appointments.
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