HALIFAX – A review of the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service has found there were several factors that contributed to the delay in bringing Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh to stand trial on 43 child sex abuse charges.
The report says the Crown attorney failed to follow up promptly as the case moved along due to the volume of other charges he was handling in court daily.
It also cites the time it took India to extradite MacIntosh to Canada as another reason why it took prosecutors a long time to get MacIntosh’s case before the court.
Allegations that MacIntosh sexually abused children first surfaced in 1995, but he wasn’t brought back to Canada until 2007, a year after Ottawa formally asked India to extradite him.
Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landry, who released the report Wednesday, issued a statement apologizing to the sex abuse complainants.
The review by the Public Prosecution Service was ordered after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a lower court’s decision to quash 17 sexual convictions against MacIntosh dating back to the 1970s, saying the Crown took too long to bring the accused sex offender to trial.
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