Brian Leslie Beaucage (22 June 1947 – 3 March 1991), better known as "Bo" Beaucage, was a Canadian gangster, outlaw biker and convicted criminal best known as the one of the leaders of the 1971 Kingston Penitentiary riot. His plea bargain with the Crown in 1971 is one of the most controversial plea bargains in Canadian legal history.
Entry into crime
Beaucage was born in St. Catharines and grew up in London, Ontario. His parents were Leslie Beaucage and Margaret Beaucage (née Black). Beaucage came from a loving middle class family, and was very close to his mother, who always paid to hire the best defense lawyers to represent him in his trials.
Beaucage was first arrested at the age of 14 for the break and enter into a London house. As a young man, Beaucage accumulated a lengthy criminal record for various violent crimes starting in 1964 as he joined an outlaw biker gang. One policeman from the London police department, Don Andrews, said of Beaucage: "You always knew Brian wasn't going to die a natural death". A prison report described him as: "Beaucage is an intelligent person who resorts to assaultive, aggressive behavior without remorse or provocation. He is considered to be very manipulative and a potentially dangerous person".
The Kingston Penitentiary riot
Beaucage was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 8 years in prison on 8 February 1969 after killing a man in London. Initially sent to the Collins Bay Institution, he was reassigned to the Kingston Penitentiary after he attacked a prison guard with a sledgehammer. At Kingston Penitentiary, Beaucage was regarded as a "loner" and as one of the most violent prisoners. Roger Caron, a prisoner at Kingston penitentiary turned writer, described Beaucage along with Wayne Ford and Barrie MacKenzie as being "natural leaders". Caron also wrote that Ford, MacKenzie and Beaucage were the three most toughest prisoners at the Kingston Penitentiary who were "not to be fucked with" by the other prisoners. Caron wrote that most prisoners accepted abuse from the guards in order to be left alone, but that Beaucage was a "rebellious" prisoner who was constantly being sent to solitary confinement, clubbed with nightsticks and being bound with chains owning to his tendency to attack the prison guards.
On 14 April 1971, a prison uprising organized by the prison barber, Billy Knight, began and six guards were taken hostage. Knight regarded the purpose of the uprising as improving conditions in Kingston Penitentiary, but Beaucage was more interested in using his newly acquired freedom to murder the "undesirables" such as the child killer and child molester prisoners who were kept in a separate wing, 1-D, for their own safety. Beaucage especially hated another prisoner, Brian Ensor. Ensor, whose nickname was "the Camel" , was an immature child-like man of extremely low intelligence and a pedophile. Ensor was serving a life sentence imposed in 1962 for raping two young girls, both under the age of 10, following testimony at his trial from two psychiatrists that Ensor was unable to control his sexual urges against children and would rape again if released. Ensor was in marked fear of his life after the uprising began and Knight and MacKenzie forced him into a cell for his own protection. Knight who had a rather grandiose view of himself saw the prison riot as a protest that would force the government of Pierre Trudeau to change its policies towards prisoners and was against violence being inflicted on the "undesirables" held in the 1-D wing out of the fear of losing public support. Knight argued in a speech to the prisoners that he wanted the Canadian public to see the prisoners as men instead of "animals". Caron described Beaucage as: "Muscular and athletic, he seemed to operate on the principle that he either liked or disliked you according to your face. He obviously found Billy's profile entirely to his disliking and was itching for the opportunity to rearrange it".
Beaucage disliked Knight, but was assigned by him along with Ford and MacKenzie to serve as the inmate "police force" in charge of keeping order. One child molester prisoner had become the lover of a powerful prisoner, Harold St. Amour, and lived outside of 1-D wing. The man testified at Beaucage's 1971 trial that Beaucage had told him "you don't belong in the general population" and beat him bloody. When a prisoner, Dave Shepley started a fight with another prisoner, John McBride, Beaucage broke up the fight by shouting at Shepley "let the kid go!" Shepley suffered a broken jaw, was released to be treated, and chose to return to the Kingston penitentiary to be with his friends. Upon his return, Sheply aligned himself with Beaucage against Knight.