EDMONTON — An Alberta man who escaped from a maximum security prison in Edmonton while serving a life sentence for killing a teen has been granted full parole after serving 30 years.
Allan Charles Pratt’s escape from the Edmonton Institution in 1981 led police on one of the largest manhunts in Canadian history before he was recaptured 40 days later in British Columbia.
Pratt, who had been on day parole for two years, appeared Thursday before a three-member National Parole Board panel.
“After a rigorous assessment of risk, he was granted full parole,” said Darren Caul, spokesman for the parole board in Edmonton.
Pratt, 54, was convicted of second-degree murder after he and another man broke into an Edmonton home in 1979, killing an 18-year-old youth by slashing his throat and beating his mother unconscious with a liquor bottle.
Just nine months into his life sentence, Pratt disappeared from the prison gym using an escape plot that prison officials have never made public to prevent the same ploy from being repeated.
Caul says like all lifers on parole, Pratt will be supervised, bound by conditions and accountable to correctional officials.
“So what that means is that if at any time for the rest of his life, if correctional officials have any concern that his risk has elevated, then he may be brought back into custody immediately.”