Prosecutors have withdrawn a second-degree homicide cost towards Timothy Rees, weeks after Ontario’s high courtroom put aside his conviction within the 1989 killing of a 10-year-old woman.
The Court docket of Enchantment for Ontario final month ordered a brand new trial for Rees, however it was as much as the Crown to resolve whether or not to proceed with one.
Prosecutors stated Thursday that in gentle of the attraction ruling and the passage of time, it was not within the public curiosity to strive the case.
Rees’s defence lawyer, James Lockyer, beforehand stated he hoped prosecutors would use their discretion to conform to enter an acquittal.
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Rees was discovered responsible in 1990 of second-degree homicide within the killing of Darla Thurrott and sentenced to life in jail with no probability of parole for 15 years.
He challenged his conviction however the attraction was dismissed in 1994, and the Supreme Court docket declined to listen to his case.
Rees was launched on day parole in 2009 and later granted full parole.
Greater than 20 years after his conviction, the federal justice minister referred Rees’s case again to the Enchantment Court docket following the identification of latest info that the courtroom had not heard in his trial or attraction.
The Enchantment Court docket discovered there was a miscarriage of justice that warranted a brand new trial.
The brand new attraction turned on a recording of a dialog between an officer and the owner of the constructing, which police had not disclosed.
On the recording, the owner, who lived in the identical dwelling as Darla and her household, denied killing the woman and “made some statements suggesting prior sexual contact along with her,” the choice stated.
He additionally made feedback that advised he had encountered Darla on the night time of her dying, and others denying he had, it stated.
The truth that the tape had not been disclosed affected the equity of the trial by depriving the defence of fabric to additional advance its principle of a third-party suspect, the courtroom dominated.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
