It was 10 years ago this spring that a Coroner's jury conducted an inquest into the deaths of Arlene May and Randy Iles, making 213 recommendations with the hope that similar tragedies could be prevented.

But the two latest high-profile cases of domestic violence - or intimate partner abuse as it is now termed - show that a decade later, while the Canadian justice system has improved considerably, preventable tragedies still occur.  The first and more tragic case involves the murder of three children in the small town of Merritt, British Columbia.

The transcript of the over-the-phone bail hearing for a B.C. man wanted in connection with the murder of his three children reveals chilling similarities to the murder-suicide that occurred in our region in 1996.

In both the May-Iles case and the more recent tragedy in British Columbia, key pieces of information were not shared between police, the Crown and the justice system.

Arlene May was murdered in Craigleith by her former boyfriend who then killed himself. Her murder followed months of abuse, threats and harassment, which she had reported to the police numerous times. At the time of the murder/suicide, Iles had been charged with several offences against Arlene and was free on bail that prohibited him from having any contact with her.

Iles' final appearance before the courts occurred in Owen Sound on February 29, 1996, when he was released on the condition that he leave the jurisdiction. But at the time of his release, unknown to the court, there was another warrant for his arrest in the neighbouring jurisdiction of Simcoe County for further breaches of the terms of his release.

On March 6, another warrant was issued in Grey County for breaching his recognizance by communicating with Arlene May. After finding out about this latest warrant, Iles bought a gun, drove to May's home in Craigleith, where he barricaded Arlene and her three children in the house.

After several hours' confinement, he ordered the three children to go to the corner store and call the police. The last they saw of their mother was her sitting on her bed, crying, telling them to go. The police responded to the home. They were unable to establish contact, and at approximately 3:40 they entered the home and found both Randy and Arlene deceased in her bedroom.

Had one court known about the escalating bail breaches filed in the neighbouring jurisdiction, it probably would have kept Iles in custody.

Last week in British Columbia, 10-year-old Kaitlynne, eight-year-old Max, and five-year-old Cordon were found murdered in their mobile home on April 6. Their mother discovered their bodies after returning from a short errand and the children's father, Allan Dwayne Schoenborn, is the prime suspect. He had been released on bail three days earlier after threatening another young child and a school principal.

As in the May-Iles case, the key flaw in the Schoenborn tragedy seems to be a breakdown in communication, as the justice of the peace who ordered him released did not have two vital pieces of information.

He was not aware that RCMP officers had visited the children's homes three times in the past six months, acting at the request of child-protection authorities, nor was he aware that Schoenborn had violated a peace bond designed to keep his wife safe from him. In the context of domestic violence, a peace bond violation was a significant piece of information that the RCMP did not provide the justice of the peace.

One of the key recommendations of the May-Iles inquest was that "the contents of the standard Crown bail brief, should be available to all police services by computer access in order to ensure that information known to one jurisdiction is available to another, to detect if the accused has outstanding charges and releases for crimes of violence in the another jurisdiction."

Last week's headlines revealed other sad, tragic ironies. The mother of the three children who were murdered in British Columbia had fled Vancouver to the small town of Merritt to escape her violent spouse and had taken out a peace bond against him.

Yet recently he had moved back into the house with the family. At about the same time in Toronto, a 19-year-old woman, eight months pregnant, was jailed in order to make sure she would appear in court to testify against her boyfriend. She has since been released from jail and is now testifying as a hostile witness. She maintains she and her abuser are in love and wants nothing to do with pressing charges against him.

So in a nutshell, in B.C., the system released a perpetrator of domestic violence with tragic consequences, at the same time in Ontario, the system incarcerated a victim of domestic violence, while the accused remained free on bail.

There is something terribly, terribly wrong with this picture, not the least of which is that history seems to repeat itself.

But history seems to continually repeat itself in cases of intimate partner abuse - battered women who take back their abusive partners, even after they have filed charges or taken out restraining orders against them, or recant their stories and refuse to testify against them in court - it's a strange, twisted dynamic that defies logic.

These cases show us that even if you put a fine system in place, but then don't abide by it, you might as well not have bothered. The B.C. tragedy suggests that when it comes to battling the scourge of domestic violence, good systems are necessary but not sufficient. We also need sustained, meticulous, painstaking effort in applying the measures we have adopted.

We also need to continue to educate and support victims so they can break the physical, economic, emotional and psychological bonds that often tie them to their abuser.