Timothy Rees speaks to the media outside the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto on Thursday.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Standing outside a Toronto courthouse Thursday, Timothy Rees said an enormous burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Finally, nobody can call him a murderer.
In a Nov. 27 ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal had quashed Mr. Rees’s conviction, ruling that a miscarriage of justice had occurred as a result of undisclosed police evidence, leaving it up to the Crown to decide whether to order a new trial.
On Thursday, 35 years after Mr. Rees was convicted of killing 10-year-old Darla Thurrott, 23 of those years spent in prison before his eventual release on parole, the Crown withdrew that charge against the now-62-year-old, bringing to an end his decades-long battle to clear his name. Crown attorney Shane Hobson announced there would be no public interest in proceeding with a trial.
“I did not kill Darla. I did not cause her any harm. … I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” Mr. Rees told reporters afterward.
Mr. Rees wrote to Innocence Canada in 1999 to ask for help fighting his conviction.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Rees has long maintained his innocence, his lawyer, James Lockyer, told the court Thursday – even when that assertion cost him dearly.
Justice Jane Kelly, too, acknowledged that cost Thursday in her brief address to Mr. Rees.
“You have maintained your innocence for all those years and, quite frankly, that resulted in you serving additional time in custody. It looks like, by my calculation, about eight years,” she said.
“But 23 years is simply too long on the basis of what I’ve heard today. One day would’ve been too long on the basis of what I’ve heard today.”
She told him that while the burden of the case had been lifted off his back, “I’m certain it will remain in your mind for the rest of your life. So I wish you good luck, sir.”
The legal saga ultimately boiled down to a dusty old cassette tape and an issue of non-disclosure of evidence.
Mr. Rees was convicted of second-degree murder in 1990 for the 1989 killing. The then-25-year-old had been crashing at Darla’s home after a night of drinking and drugs with her parents when the 10-year-old was found strangled and lifeless in her bed.
Mr. Rees was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 15 years, ultimately serving 23 before being granted full parole in 2013. His conviction was largely based on a confession that he has always maintained was coerced and that he looks back on as the biggest mistake of his life.
Darla Thurott was found strangled in her bed in 1989.Supplied
In 1999, after applications to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada were denied, Mr. Rees wrote to what is now known as Innocence Canada – a non-profit organization that advocates for people wrongly convicted of a crime – asking them to review his conviction.
The lawyer who initially took on his case requested full disclosure of the case files from the Toronto Police Service. The files included a previously undisclosed cassette tape with a recording of an interview that took place the day after Darla’s murder between a junior constable and another man who had been in the house that night.
In that conversation – which had seemingly been secretly recorded – the family’s live-in landlord, James Raymer, made what Mr. Rees’s appeal lawyer argued were incriminating and even pedophilic comments about his inappropriate relationship with Darla, including that he interacted with the girl at least twice the night she was killed and kissed her goodnight.
At trial, where Mr. Raymer testified as the first Crown witness, he denied even having seen her.
“The first Crown witness lied through his teeth. The first Crown witness may well have been Darla’s killer. We say was,” Mr. Lockyer told the court Thursday. “But of course he’ll never be tried.”
Mr. Raymer died in 1999.
“Mr. Rees never got a fair trial,” Mr. Lockyer said. “He never will.”
It’s unclear who was aware of the tape’s existence within the police force. During the appeal hearing, court heard the junior constable in the recording say he had no memory of the conversation. The case’s lead investigators similarly said they’d never heard the tape and had no idea it existed.
The appeal court heard police had written off Mr. Raymer as a suspect because he had developmental and physical disabilities, which they argued would have made it difficult for him to have strangled the girl.
But had Mr. Raymer’s comments been properly disclosed to the Crown, it is doubtful Mr. Rees would have been charged, never mind convicted, argued Mr. Lockyer, a co-founder of Innocence Canada.
Lawyer James Lockyer, a co-founder of Innocence Canada, told the court Mr. Rees has long maintained his innocence.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Crown lawyers disputed the strength of the evidence on the tape, which they characterized as confusing, and argued that even with this new evidence, their case against Mr. Rees remained strong. Nonetheless, they acknowledged the tape should have been disclosed. The appeal court agreed.
In her address to Mr. Rees Thursday after the charge was withdrawn, Justice Kelly emphasized the importance of full disclosure.
“I’m sure we’re all wondering why the tapes weren’t disclosed – and perhaps why they were in the location they were found when they were ultimately disclosed to counsel,” she said. “It raises more questions than provides answers.”
Outside court, Mr. Lockyer characterized the undisclosed evidence as “outrageous and unacceptable” police wrongdoing. But he also commended the officer who ultimately found and handed over the cassette tape.
“It was a remarkable thing that he did, and it’s well known that wrongful convictions are often solved by just sheer fluke, good luck, good chance. And that’s very true of Tim’s case,” he said. “Without the discovery of that tape, I doubt this day would ever have come.”