Photo: Castanet Staff

File photo of Teneycke leaving the Penticton Courthouse in May 2017

The Correctional Service of Canada is refusing to comment on how dangerous offender Ronald Teneycke was able to send a letter to a South Okanagan man he shot, despite a court order forbidding contact.

The notorious criminal is facing a new charge of failing to comply with a non-communication order for a Christmas letter he sent to Wayne Belleville, the Oliver man he shot in the back during a criminal rampage through the South Okanagan in 2015.

Teneycke is currently at the Kent maximum security prison in Agassiz serving an indefinite jail term after being declared a dangerous offender last year.

In a brief statement to Castanet Wednesday, CSC refused to comment on Teneycke’s letter due to privacy concerns, but said prison staff only have the authority to “intercept inmate communications when it believes on reasonable grounds that the safety of the public or of the institution will be jeopardized.”

Belleville said Teneycke’s letter blamed him for the shooting and indicated he has no empathy for him to this day. Teneycke had shot Belleville in the back after he picked the fugitive up hitchhiking, unaware the hitchhiker was the subject of a region-wide manhunt for the armed robbery of a Oliver grocery store. 

“CSC is dedicated to providing ongoing support to victims of crime, and ensuring all victims are treated with fairness, compassion and respect and that their rights be considered at all times,” Corrections Canada’s statement concludes.

Prior to shooting Belleville, Teneycke had 37 previous convictions for offences including sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and uttering threats, in connection to the rape of an Okanagan teenager in 1993.

He was out on an intermittent sentence when he robbed the store and shot Belleville.