Saint John police review up in the air a year after two men exonerated in murder case

Robert Mailman, left, and Walter Gillespie, speak to media shortly after their hearing at Saint John Law Courts in Saint John, N.B., January 4, 2024. More than a year after the Saint John, N.B., police chief announced a review of his officers' conduct in the case of two New Brunswick men wrongfully convicted of murder, there is no sign of the promised report. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michael Hawkins

FREDERICTON — More than a year after the Saint John, N.B., police chief announced a review of his officers' conduct in the case of two men wrongfully convicted of murder, there is no sign of the promised report.

On Jan. 12, 2024, Chief Robert Bruce said he had ordered a “comprehensive review” of the investigation that resulted in Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie serving long prison sentences for a 1983 murder they did not commit.

The review was announced eight days after New Brunswick Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Tracey DeWare exonerated the men and said they had been victims of a miscarriage of justice. Earlier, federal Justice Minister Arif Virani had ordered a new trial citing evidence that called into question “the overall fairness” of their prosecution.

Bruce said he had commissioned Allen Farrah, a retired senior RCMP officer, to “carry out an independent review solely focused on the investigation” by the Saint John police. Farrah is the owner and sole employee of the investigative consulting firm Clear-Path Solutions, Inc., based in Hanwell, N.B.

“Given the circumstances and out of a sense of duty and responsibility, I will conduct a comprehensive review of the involvement of the Saint John police in this matter,” Bruce said at the time.

However, a year later the police force is not saying when the review will be completed. Spokesman Staff Sgt. Matt Weir said last week he has no timeline for when the findings will be made public. Reached by email, Farrah said he would not be commenting on the Mailman-Gillespie review and directed questions back to Saint John police.

In December, newly elected Liberal Premier Susan Holt wondered what had happened to the Saint John police’s investigation.

“Where is the report? Is it complete? What were their findings?” she asked. “Because certainly (Gillespie and Mailman’s) experience having been wrongfully convicted, and for that long, really, it would be devastating. We don’t want anybody else to have to experience that. So we need to learn from the times we’ve got it wrong.”

Innocence Canada, which led the legal fight to exonerate the two men, presented a written submission to the court last January alleging that the convictions had been the result of “police tunnel vision, non-disclosure of important evidence, recantations by the two key Crown witnesses,” as well as a disregard for the men’s strong alibis.

The court document noted that Saint John police had given a total of $1,800 — in addition to hotel and relocation costs — to a 16-year-old who testified in 1984 that he had witnessed the murder of George Leeman in Saint John. The payments were not disclosed during the trial. The witness, John Loeman Jr., later recanted his story to his own lawyer, to a journalist, in two letters and to a federal Justice Department lawyer looking into Mailman and Gillespie’s case in 1998.

“This case was a disgrace,” James Lockyer, founding director of Innocence Canada, told reporters outside the courthouse last year after the two men were acquitted. “It was simply a case where the ends justify the means from the police perspective.”

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 wouldn’t be commenting further on the case. “The province and Mr. Mailman and Mr. Gillespie came to an amicable resolution and settlement last year,” spokesman Allan Dearing said in an email. He referred questions about the review to the police force and to the civilian board that oversees the force.

In an interview Monday, Lockyer said it is unusual for police departments to review their own conduct by hiring a former police officer. An investigation into a wrongful conviction is usually done through a public inquiry or by the government, he said, not by the police department alleged to be at fault.

“(Innocence Canada) don’t have a whole lot of faith in the process, to say the least,” he said.

Mailman believes he and Gillespie were targeted for prosecution because the two friends had previously had brushes with the law and the police simply wanted them off the street. “If the shoe don’t fit, then they’ll stretch it and make it fit,” he said in an interview last month.

He lamented the short time it took for them to be arrested and convicted compared with their decades-long fight to prove their innocence and regain their freedom. Mailman spent 18 years in prison and Gillespie served 21 years.

Mailman, 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, for the reason that if they do, then they’ve got to admit that they were wrong. And they’re going to have to admit that they knew it all along. They don’t want to do that,” he said.

“But if they’re not held accountable and the truth doesn’t come out, then the next miscarriage of justice is just around the corner. It’s going to happen again.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2025.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press