More than a year after the St. John, NB, police chief announced a review of his officers’ conduct in the case of two men wrongly convicted of murder, there is no sign of a promised report.
On January 12, 2024, Chief Robert Bruce said he had ordered a “comprehensive review” of the investigation that resulted in long prison terms for the 1983 murders of Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie.
The review was announced eight days after King’s Bench Chief Justice Tracy DeVere’s New Brunswick court acquitted the men, saying they suffered a miscarriage of justice. Earlier, Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani ordered a new trial citing evidence that called into question the “entire fairness” of his proceedings.
Bruce said he commissioned retired senior RCMP officer Alan Farah to “conduct an independent review focused solely on the investigation” by St. John’s police. Farrah is the owner and sole employee of Clear-Path Solutions, Inc., an investigative consulting firm based in Hanwell, NB.
“Given the circumstances and out of a sense of duty and responsibility, I will conduct a comprehensive review of the involvement of the St. John police in this matter,” Bruce said at the time.
However, after a year the police force is not saying when the review will be completed. Spokesman Staff Sgt. Matt Weir said last week there was no timeline for when the findings would be released. Reached by email, Farah said he would not comment on the Mailman-Gillespie review and would refer questions back to St. John police.
In December, newly elected Liberal Premier Susan Holt wondered what had happened to the St. John police investigation.
“Where is the report? Is it complete? What were their conclusions?” she asked. “Because certainly (Gillespie and Mailman’s) experience was wrongly convicted, and in the long run, really, it would be disastrous. We don’t want anyone else to experience this. So we need to learn from the wrong times.”
Innocent Canada, which waged a legal battle to exonerate the two men, filed a written submission to the court last January alleging the convictions were the result of “police tunnel vision, non-disclosure of vital evidence, backlash by two major Crowns”. . witnesses,” as well as ignoring the men’s strong alibis.
A court document noted that St. John police paid a total of $1,800 — in addition to hotel and transportation costs — to a 16-year-old who testified in 1984 that he saw George Lyman killed in St. John. The payments were not disclosed during the trial. The witness, John Lowman Jr., later told his story in two letters to his own attorney, a reporter, and a federal Justice Department lawyer investigating the Mailman and Gillespie case in 1998.
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“This case was scandalous,” Innocence Canada founding director James Lockyer told reporters outside the courthouse last year after the two men were acquitted. “It was simply a case where the end justified the means from the police’s point of view.”
In February, Mailman and Gillespie reached an undisclosed settlement with the New Brunswick government. Less than two months later, Gillespie died at the age of 80.
New Brunswick’s Department of Justice and Public Safety said last week that the government would not comment further on the case. “The province and Mr. Melman and Mr. Gillespie came to an amicable resolution and settlement last year,” spokesman Alan Dearing said in an email. He referred questions about the review to the police force and the civilian board that oversees the force.
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In an interview Monday, Lockyer said it’s unusual for police departments to hire a former police officer to review their own conduct. Wrongful convictions are usually investigated by a public inquiry or by the government, he said, not by a police department.
“(Innocence Canada) doesn’t have full confidence in the process, to say the least,” he said.
Mailman believes he and Gillespie were targeted for prosecution because both friends had previous brushes with the law and the police simply wanted them off the street. “If the shoe doesn’t fit, they’ll pull it and make it fit,” he said in an interview last month.
He lamented the short time it took to arrest and convict him compared to the decades-long fight to prove his innocence and regain his freedom. Melman spent 18 years in prison and Gillespie served 21 years.
Melman, who is 76 and has terminal liver cancer, thinks he will die without seeing the results of the review or receiving an apology from the police.
“They can’t, and they won’t, because if they do, they have to admit that they were wrong. And they have to admit that they knew it all. They don’t want to do that,” he said. said
“But if they are not held accountable and the truth comes out, then the next miscarriage of justice is around the corner. It’s going to happen again. “
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on January 17, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
