AGASSIZ, B.C. - Toronto cop-killer Craig Munro lost another bid for day parole Tuesday but was granted a limited number of unescorted absences.

Munro is serving a life sentence for the March 14, 1980 murder of Toronto Const. Michael Sweet, who was shot and left to bleed to death in a botched, late-night tavern robbery.

Munro, 58, refused to allow medical help for Sweet while he and his younger brother Jamie tried to negotiate their surrender with police.

After a 90-minute standoff, an emergency-response unit stormed the bar and shot both men, but Sweet was pronounced dead in hospital.

Members of Sweet's family, who opposed his first parole application last year, came west again and made emotional pleas that Munro not be released.

His eldest daughter, Jennifer Sweet, tearfully described how, by allowing her father to die, Munro "brutally stole my childhood."

"In the last hours of his life, Mr. Munro chose to ignore his pleas for life," she told the National Parole Board panel.

Echoing other members of her family, daughter Nicole Sweet noted the previous parole panel found Munro was still trying to blame his upbringing and other outside factors for his violent character and events that led to the murder.

It would be hard to believe much had changed in the year since that hearing, she told the four-hour hearing.

In a written statement, Sweet's brother John said 30 years after the killing, he's still coming to terms with it.

"The senselessness and brutality of my brother's murder remains absolutely incomprehensible," he said.

Sweet's widow Karen, who remarried, was at the hearing but chose to give her statement via a video disk.

"I had to tell the children that a very bad man with a gun had shot their daddy," Karen Fraser said.

In the year since's Munro's last parole hearing "all the bad times have come rushing back. What have I done to deserve this pain?" she asked.

Munro, a bulky man with a shaved head and designer glasses, repeated a mantra that he had made bad choices that were usually fuelled by alcohol or drug use.

"I take responsibility for the choices I made back then," he told the hearing. "But I had a severe drinking problem."

Munro insisted he did not know Sweet was mortally wounded, bleeding into his lungs, because the officer was wearing a heavy coat. Sweet pleaded with Munro to get help, explaining he had a wife and young children.

Munro said he was drunk and high during the standoff, worried police would harm him for shooting Sweet.

"I was not thinking straight. That's the main reason I didn't give up right away."

At the time of the robbery he was out of prison on mandatory supervision and had just been convicted of a weapons charge. The holdup was planned as a way of raising the money for his $1,000 fine.

A couple of times, emotion did push through the jargon of rehabilitation in Munro's presentation. In a choking voice at one point he said he feels shame for what he did and "I use the guilt to help motivate me."

The two-member parole board panel turned down Munro's day-parole request, saying he remains at moderate risk to commit a violent act.

But it approved a series of temporary unescorted absences, accepting Munro's case managers' view that he's made progress in accepting responsibility for what he did.

Munro will be allowed four unescorted trips to Kelowna totalling 15 days to take part in programs and further reconnect with his Metis heritage.

Munro has been living in a minimum security aboriginal "healing village" for the last two years, taking instruction in First Nations spirituality.

The board attached three conditions on the unescorted absences: that Munro avoid drugs and alcohol, that he stay away from criminal associates and that he have no contact with Sweet's family.

Munro applied for early parole in 1997 under the so-called faint-hope clause but withdrew the bid after news reports triggered a public outcry.

A psychological assessment done last year diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder.

Munro's brother Jamie was convicted of second-degree murder and was released in 1992. A parole board spokesman said he was granted permission to emigrate to Italy.

Julian Fantino, head of the Ontario Provincial Police, was a Toronto police detective who investigated Sweet's homicide and has attended each of Munro's parole bids.

Fantino said he was not surprised by the board's decision but said he was concerned Corrections Canada's privacy rules prevented victims from seeing all the reports and assessments of Munro before preparing their statements.

After the hearing, Fantino said Munro still wasn't being honest with the board.

"He's manipulative, he's self-serving," said Fantino.

"Having had the experience of dealing with him and his brother from Day 1, if I was able under the system to stand up there under oath and give evidence, I could have contradicted so much of what he had to say in there."

Lawyer Tim Danson, speaking for the Sweet family, echoed Fantino's concerns about the transparency of the parole process, saying a push is underway to make it as open as Canadian court proceedings.

As for Munro's unescorted absences, Danson said the family's reaction was mixed.

"I think there's some relief that he was denied day parole, for sure, but there's disappointment that he's getting any kind of release at this particular point in time," said Danson.

"I think there's a significant disconnect between the decision of the parole board just a year ago (when parole was denied), and the decision today."

In denying Munro's request last year, the parole board said he still posed a risk to the public and continued to minimize his role in the crime.