By Brendan Kennedy of The Star:
Justice Clayton Conlan made clear that his decision to throw out first-degree murder charges because of the abuse the accused suffered while awaiting trial at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex was about much more than the violent retribution they and nearly 200 other inmates endured.
That treatment over two days in December 2023 was “akin to torture,” Conlan wrote. But the judge’s 113-page ruling suggests he likely would not have granted the stay if jail officials — from high-ranking administrators to rank-and-file guards — hadn’t also tried to cover up what happened, and then further lied about it in court.
Thirty Maplehurst witnesses testified over weeks of pre-trial hearings. Conlan found most of them gave untruthful, evasive or “blatantly incorrect or false testimony.”
The deceit ranged from serious attempts to conceal what happened, to absurd, easily disprovable lies that left the judge stunned. Conlan rejected all of it, finding the search was conducted “for one reason and one reason only. It was done for vengeance.”
Conlan found management’s requests to have occurrence reports prepared four months later were part of an “after-the-fact effort … to coverup the real reason for the ICIT activation.”
Several Maplehurst correctional officers lied in court about things that were obviously disprovable and with explanations Conlan found to be absurd.
Justice Conlan was blunt in his assessment of their credibility. “They lied, under oath, in giving those explanations,” he said in court in August. “They’re completely preposterous.”
No Maplehurst staff member took responsibility for inmates being left in their underwear for up to two days after the ICIT operation. Some said they were left unclothed due to a shortage of clean clothes, although that was disproven by other witnesses and video evidence.
Inmates have said in interviews and affidavits filed in court that while they were left in their underwear, jail staff turned on exhaust fans that blew cold air onto the unit, causing them extreme discomfort to the point of pain.
