Lynn Valley resident Ivan Henry is heading to court seeking compensation for the 26 years he spent in prison following a wrongful conviction.
Henry, 64, filed a notice of claim in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday. He named the federal and provincial attorneys general, the City of Vancouver and a trio of former Vancouver police officers as defendants.
Henry was convicted in 1983 of three counts of rape, two counts of attempted rape and five counts of indecent assault. He always protested his innocence. More than 20 years later, the Vancouver police began to re-investigate several unsolved sexual assaults from the 1980s and eventually convicted a man whose name is subject to a publication ban but is identified as "D.M." That man served five years in jail.
Noticing parallels between their cases and the ones Henry was convicted of, police investigators passed their findings to the provincial attorney general. Henry was freed in 2009 pending a new appeal and the B.C. Court of Appeal acquitted him of all charges in October of last year.
In their notice of claim, Henry's lawyers point to a series of incidents they claim stacked the legal deck against him. After his initial arrest, Henry was put in an identification lineup with six police officers, all of whom were noticeably taller than Henry and none of whom had red hair. Henry refused to participate, and was being forcibly restrained by a officers while the victim made her selection.
According to the claim, another victim was shown a photo lineup in which Henry was clearly older than the other men, and the only one photographed in front of a jail cell.
Henry opted to represent himself at his trial, and asked to see the evidence against him beforehand.
"Although (Crown counsel Michael) Luchenko was in possession of all the police reports and notes relating to the plaintiff's criminal charges," reads the notice of claim, "he did not disclose any victim statements, police reports or forensic reports to the plaintiff or his counsel before the commencement of the trial."
While the Crown eventually released 11 statements to Henry, they withheld another 30 that may have undermined the prosecution's case, says the claim.
The claim also alleges that police officers found semen at the scene of four of the sexual assaults, and that forensic tests were available that would have excluded Henry as a suspect. None of this information, say Henry's lawyers, was shared with Henry. The claim also alleges both the police and the crown were aware of D.M.'s possible involvement as early as 1982, again without passing this information to the defence.
Henry was convicted, declared a dangerous offender, and given an indefinite prison sentence, despite a psychiatrist's report during sentencing that said Henry had mental health disorders that should have made him unfit to stand trial.
Over the following 22 years Henry would file more than 50 applications for review or appeal, all without success.
Both during Henry's trial and after he was imprisoned, sexual assaults continued to occur with a modus operandi similar to the ones Henry was convicted of and in the same West Side neighbourhood. This information did not find its way to Henry either, and his lawyers also allege the police failed to investigate a possible connection between the assaults.
The conduct of the police and the Crown, the claim alleges, "was high-handed, outrageous, reckless, entirely without care, intentional, deliberate, in disregard of the plaintiff's rights, indifferent to the consequences, and exploited the plaintiff's vulnerability."
None of Henry's claims have been proven in court and no statement of defence has yet been filed.
In addition to claiming damages for himself, Henry is seeking compensation for his two daughters, who were young children when he was imprisoned. Neither Henry, his family or lawyers are willing to comment on a dollar figure at this point.
In 1999, the Saskatchewan government awarded $10 million to David Milgaard for the 22 years he was imprisoned for a 1969 murder and sexual assault. A Manitoba government review in 2001 recommended Thomas Sophonow be paid $2.6 million in compensation for the four years he lived behind bars for a 1981 murder. In 2006, the Quebec government paid Simon Marshall $2.3 million after he was cleared of several sexual assaults. Marshall spent six years in prison. In 2008, the Ontario government agreed to pay Steven Truscott $6.5 million in compensation. Truscott was given the death sentence in 1959 before being paroled in 1969 and acquitted in 2007.
