Robert Lee Ford has been granted full parole.
Ford was a drug lord in the Comox area prior to the 1990’s and once reportedly boasted that he “owned the valley”.
Ford was serving a sentence for the murder of Gary Hardy, a minor player in the Island drug scene, outside a Comox hotel.
In 1990 Ford orchestrated Canada’s first prison break using a helicopter.
In deciding to grant Ford full parole, officials noted that his behaviour had been satisfactory since 2009, earning him a transfer to a minimum-security institution in 2010 and day-parole release in 2015.
An RCMP investigator with the Courtenay detachment once said Ford was psychopathic and a sociopath.
There’s no word on where Ford is now planning to live but he is employed full time and owns a houseboat he is planning to refurbish.
