A woman who went undercover to get a confession from the man who sexually assaulted her says she’s “fed up” and “retraumatized” by a parole board decision to release him.
The parole board decision comes as Vienna Luke has received support from people across Canada and abroad who have heard her extraordinary story of going undercover as an RCMP agent in the CBC podcast Personally: Agent Layla.
“I feel deflated,” said Luke of the decision to release Justin Sewell early. “My story being out there is like, ‘Wow, look.’ But there’s still so much work to be done.”
The parole board made its decision to release Sewell on Oct. 6, citing his low assessed risk to reoffend and his compliance and participation in therapeutic programs during his time in a halfway house.
Justin Sewell (left) was a trusted brother-in-law to Vienna Luke (second from right) and Shawnessy Luke (right). Vienna met him when she was 10 years old. (Shawnessy Luke/Submitted)
As described in the Personally: Agent Layla podcast and in court documents, Sewell drugged, assaulted and photographed Luke in 2007 when she was 20 years old.
After wrestling for years with what really happened the night she was drugged into unconsciousness and assaulted, Luke decided in 2019 to report the assault to police after she and her sister, Shawnessy Luke, recorded a phone conversation with Sewell’s ex-lover who said he disclosed putting ketamine in Vienna’s drink. In court, Sewell has denied it was ketamine, but a provincial court judge found it was either ketamine or Valium.
RCMP proposed a plan to put Vienna Luke undercover, giving her the code name Agent Layla. They used emails to entice Sewell to meet her face to face at a hotel lounge at the Vancouver International Airport under the premise that him telling the truth might be a path back to family reconciliation.
In the recording from the sting, obtained by CBC and included in Episode 3 of the Agent Layla podcast, Vienna Luke pushes Sewell to describe the specific details of his offence. He admits to drugging and assaulting her, and to watching her through her bedroom window on two separate occasions.
Eventually, Sewell pleaded guilty to sexual assault and two counts of voyeurism.
Sewell was a successful veterinarian in the northern B.C. community of Fort St. John at the time of the assault. (Shawnessy Luke/Submitted)
After what was described in court as an unusually lengthy sentencing hearing in which Sewell took the stand arguing that a self-diagnosed addiction to pornography was the root cause of his offences, a provincial court judge sentenced Sewell to two years less a day of house arrest in April 2025.
Seven months later, a panel of B.C. Court of Appeal judges overturned that decision and imposed a sentence of 33 months less a day to be served in prison.
After serving about six months in a federal institution, Sewell was granted day parole and transferred to a halfway house in April 2026.
Since then, according to notifications provided to his victims and viewed by CBC News, Sewell has been granted permission to leave the halfway house and travel to his home in Fort St. John or to “recreate” in Grande Prairie, Alta., for 70 days over a period of less than seven months.
The Parole Board first considered Sewell’s applications to be granted full parole in an April 2026 face-to-face hearing. His case was up for review again six months later in early October. This time he was subject to a paper review, a parole decision-making process that assesses documents written about the offender’s behaviour and programs they have completed, but does not interview the offender.
The two boards came to a few markedly different conclusions.
The parole board members in April 2026 found in their decision that Sewell “engaged in considerable rationalizing and minimizing” of his offences. Instead of addressing the “key issues leading to your violence,” the board found he focused on “[his] use of pornography and the problems in [his] marriage, as though solving those particular problems was a solution also for the behavioural issues that led to the sexual assault.”
“The Board believes that a day or full parole release to your home community is not adequate to the task of protecting the community from your risk.”
With support of her sister Shawnessy Luke (left), Vienna Luke went undercover in her own case and obtained a confession. The sisters continue to work together seeking justice in the case. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Six months later, despite letters from Vienna and Shawnessy Luke imploring the board to weigh heavily the findings of the April board members who interviewed Sewell and decided against full parole, the October parole board members found Sewell’s “compliance, community adjustment, ongoing therapeutic involvement, and low assessed risk” support a reduction in supervision and that release on full parole “will not present an undue risk to society.”
That board granted full parole on Oct. 6. Correctional Service Canada confirmed the end of Sewell’s sentence is Jan. 1, 2028. For the 14 months that remain, Sewell is required to report all sexual and non-sexual relationships with females, and he is prohibited from accessing pornography.
For Vienna Luke, it has been an intense time. On the one hand, she’s received messages from podcast listeners commending her for sharing her story of confronting her abuser, which led to a conviction and prison time. On the other hand, she’s found herself still advocating behind the scenes for justice in her case.
“I’m a person that chose to report,” she said. “You can understand why people are just like, ‘I’m going to move on with my life.'”
In the most recent parole board decision, board members cited a letter from the Luke sisters questioning the 70 days Sewell was allowed to leave the halfway house, including his release “for the purposes of a hunting trip.”
Justin Sewell in a photo where he is hunting. This image is from before he faced the courts for his assault on Vienna Luke. Sewell is now under a 10-year prohibition on possessing firearms. (Shawnessy Luke/Submitted)
The sisters say that in September they began to suspect that some of Sewell’s trips might be to participate in hunting, an activity he described as an important hobby in court.
Concerned he might be violating a 10-year ban on using firearms, the Luke sisters say they called the Fort St. John RCMP non-emergency line to alert the police. They say the officer on the line told them Sewell had been granted permission to go hunting with an “approved associate.”
Vienna Luke said she met with Correctional Service Canada and parole board officials to express her concerns.
“As they talked and continued to justify how they were handling him … and their allowances to him, I started shaking. I was so upset,” she said.
The sisters weren’t worried for their personal safety. They live in Vancouver, about 800 kilometres from Fort St. John as the crow flies. Their concern was that the decision to grant him time to participate in a hobby was at odds with the seriousness of the crime.
“We had a hunch he was going hunting, but we didn’t think he was approved to go hunting,” said Vienna Luke.
“We were livid,” said Shawnessy Luke.
CBC News reached out to Correctional Service Canada to confirm the details of Sewell’s permission to go hunting. In an email, it says the organization cannot provide details of travel permits because of the Privacy Act.
The statement adds that “[w]hile we cannot talk about specifics of this case due to privacy, please note that if, at any time, an offender’s risk increases or there is a change in their behaviour … we take immediate action.”
The Luke sisters’ concerns were summarized by the parole board, who wrote in the October decision: “It is also concerning that your index offence involved violence and yet you are requesting to engage in an extended activity which involves weapons.”
Vienna Luke knows the outcome of her case – a conviction in a historic sexual assault – is rare. But throughout the lengthy process since she first reported the assault seven years ago, she has found herself questioning whether the justice system is working for sexual assault survivors.
“You would think that maybe the fact he went to jail, he went to a halfway house, the justice system is telling me that I should feel grateful. Look at what you got,” she said.
“I feel ungrateful. What did we do all this work for?”
Vienna Luke told her story in honour of other women who have told their stories of surviving sexual assault. (Vienna Luke/Submitted)
In interviews for the podcast and elsewhere, Vienna has emphasized she is telling her story to honour sexual assault victims who went before her. She told their stories, including their struggles with the justice system, which gave her strength in the hardest times.
Now she’s receiving emails from other women telling her she has become a symbol of strength for them.
“I’ve come so far,” she said. “To be in a place where I can speak about what happened to me, what was done to me publicly, and everything I did in this process is unbelievable and really I just feel so proud.”
