Administrators cleared in tainted-blood case

ANDRÉ PICARD

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

October 2, 2007 at 10:38 AM EDT

A Toronto judge has not only acquitted senior administrators of the blood system of all criminal charges in the tainted-blood tragedy, she has suggested they were utterly innocent and never should have been charged in the first place.

In a forcefully written judgment, Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto of the Ontario Superior Court said that the accused acted professionally and reasonably in the face of a bedevilling public-health problem, and that the horrific infection of hemophiliacs with HIV-AIDS was not their fault.

"The events here were tragic. However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy," she said.

Victims of tainted blood reacted with seething disbelief. "People were infected and people died. How that could possibly be considered reasonable behaviour is beyond us," John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society said outside the courthouse, his voice rising in anger.

Mike McCarthy, who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood, went further, saying the judgment was a "miscarriage of justice." He called on the Crown attorney to appeal the acquittals.

But David Scott, a lawyer for a senior Health Canada official who was acquitted, said "these charges should never have been laid. It was a mistake from the beginning and people's lives have been brutally affected by them."

Eddie Greenspan, lawyer for the former head of the Red Cross blood program, described the ruling as "absolute vindication and complete exoneration" on a scale that is rarely seen. "The bottom line is that there was no criminal conduct by anyone who was in charge. The bottom line is that Canada was well served by people who made these decisions."

"How that could possibly be considered reasonable behaviour is beyond us."

Defence lawyers said that, given the exoneration, they will seek to have the legal fees of the accused reimbursed and may even launch lawsuits for malicious prosecution.

The case before the court related to one specific incident in the larger tainted-blood tragedy — the infection of seven young B.C. hemophiliacs with HIV-AIDS.

They all used Factorate, a blood product manufactured by Armour, a pharmaceutical company based in Bridgewater, N.J.

The drug was heat-treated to kill pathogens like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but the process did not work.

The criminal charges allege that the accused knew the product, which was distributed between July, 1986, and December, 1987, was potentially tainted and failed to act to prevent its distribution and to warn recipients of the danger.

Judge Benotto said that, to secure a conviction of criminal negligence, the Crown needed to demonstrate that the accused showed a wanton and reckless disregard for the lives and safety of users. On the common nuisance charge, the Crown needed to show that their actions deviated from what a reasonable person would do in the circumstances.

The judge said that, on the contrary, the "evidence taken as a whole establishes a thoughtful, careful and considered course of conduct" on the part of the accused.

But Judge Benotto went further, saying that a mere acquittal would be to damn the accused with faint praise. "The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the evidence, they were disproved."

The accused were Roger Perrault, former director of the Canadian Red Cross Society's blood-transfusion service; John Furesz, former director of the Bureau of Biologics at Health Canada; Wark Boucher, former chief of the blood-products division of the Bureau of Biologics; Michael Rodell, former vice-president of scientific and regulatory affairs at Armour; and the company itself.

They all faced four counts each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and one count each of common nuisance endangering the public. Armour faced an additional charge under the Food and Drug Act for failing to give notice of a product deficiency.

Dr. Perrault faces six more criminal charges in another case slated for trial in Hamilton. Defence lawyers hinted that, based on Monday's ruling, they will ask for those charges to be dismissed.

Victims of tainted blood said the acquittals were, more than anything, an indictment of the Canadian justice system.

"How do you, in Canada, bring to justice people who have caused the deaths of hundreds, thousands of people?" Beaty, who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood, said Monday as he choked back tears. "Canadians should not sleep too well tonight because our justice system has been found wanting."

In November, 2002, the RCMP laid 32 criminal charges against four individuals, a pharmaceutical company and the Red Cross in connection with tainted blood.

The Red Cross, as an organization, pleaded guilty to distributing contaminated blood in violation of the Food and Drug Act. It was fined $5,000 and six criminal charges were dropped.

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Our commentary in the Globe and Mail October 2, 2007

  1. You (Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa - Home of family court flagrant abusers of judicial POWER., Canada) wrote: Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto got it right, did it right in what was not only a political motivated prosecution for political purposes but an "exoneration" also with as a result of political pressure. It is so exceedingly rare that a Judge makes a mention of "exhoneration" in their decisions that it is a warning bell. Just why to these defendants deserve to have the foundation of a malicious prosecution put on their platter while tens of thousands of other accused are equally innocent and are also politically motivated "malicious" and "vexatious" prosecutions. Take the Ste. Saint Marie Police who prosecuted a 75 year old Jim Townsend with criminal harassment laid on behalf of a well known local lawyer by the name of Jeffrey D. Broadbent. You see, Mr. Broadbent purchased a house from one of his clients, a client who lost in court over a dispute over a laneway. Mr. Broadbent could not get over it and provided fabricated evidence to the police who laid the charge and had it heard by none other than Justice Richard Lajoie from the Timmins Ontario Court of Justice who found him guilty, all with that very good powerful political name as the complainant. Justice Richard Lajoie made a political decision of guilty. That decision was thrown overturned at the Ontario Court of Appeal. Mr James Townsend then filed suit for Malicious prosecution and lost. He should have sued for abuse of process, his lawyer's poor decision. The Ste. Sault Marie Police then tried to take his wife's family home. A local Ste. Saint Marie Police officer used his friends in the local gym to have Mr. Jim Townsend thrown out by using a couple of his young lady friends to make "a complaint". The Ontario Government has made the test for a malicious prosecution exceedingly high and its for a purpose. The local police in many a Canadian town lay malicious politically motivated criminal charges as a way of conducting business. Visit www.permitted-purgery.com and read the rest of the story
    • Posted 02/10/07 at 12:32 PM EDT

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Retribution and revenge seems to be the modern simple and old fashioned way of getting "justice". Modern theoretical law has other more logical common sense ideas that resolve the issues and provide appropriate remedies that victims may often leave victims without closure. Victims do not deserve "closure" at the expense of injustice. Every day someone  in Canada is probably wrongfully convicted based on the political forces that caused a charge to be laid. Police frequently act like a Pizza Delivery Business and lay charges to satisfy a local identity or local business. The fact that it costs the victim thousands in legal costs and lost reputation means nothing because the threshhold for a law suit for malicious, vexatious or abuse of process is way way too high. Its so high that only the rich can afford to litigate it and the police probably would not have risked laying the malicious charges if the victim was "well to do" and had the means to sue them later. Police frequently use that as a factor in deciding if to lay charges.

The same goes in an "investigation". All to often the investigation is nothing but a one sided view with deliberate avoidance of the evidence that showed the complainant was in fact the person who committed criminal offences. Back in 1973 the secretary to the local legal aid lawyer was murdered in Timmins Ontario. The secretary was none other than Mrs. Harwood. The police announced that it "must have been a vagrant" "an out of towner". The husband of Mrs. Harwood was none other than then Constable Joe Harwood. No witness in their right mind would have come forward in Timmins to volunteer information and indeed the investigation came up with diddly sqat. Joe Harwood later became the chief of the local police and got along fine with a Constable Paul Bonhomme who is in at least one civil document that indicates him as a perjurer. Bonhomme also committed perjury in 1998 to have a local critic charged with perjury. www.OttawaMensCentre.com 

Our comments in the Globe and Mail

October 2, 2007

  1. You (Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa - Home of family court flagrant abusers of judicial POWER., Canada) wrote: Retribution and revenge seems to be the modern simple and old fashioned way of getting "justice". Modern theoretical law has other more logical common sense ideas that resolve the issues and provide appropriate remedies that victims may often leave victims without closure. Victims do not deserve "closure" at the expense of injustice. Every day someone in Canada is probably wrongfully convicted based on the political forces that caused a charge to be laid. Police frequently act like a Pizza Delivery Business and lay charges to satisfy a local identity or local business. The fact that it costs the victim thousands in legal costs and lost reputation means nothing because the threshhold for a law suit for malicious, vexatious or abuse of process is way way too high. Its so high that only the rich can afford to litigate it and the police probably would not have risked laying the malicious charges if the victim was "well to do" and had the means to sue them later. Police frequently use that as a factor in deciding if to lay charges. The same goes in an "investigation". All to often the investigation is nothing but a one sided view with deliberate avoidance of the evidence that showed the complainant was in fact the person who committed criminal offences. Back in 1973 the secretary to the local legal aid lawyer was murdered in Timmins Ontario. The secretary was none other than Mrs. Harwood. The police announced that it "must have been a vagrant" "an out of towner". The husband of Mrs. Harwood was none other than then Constable Joe Harwood. No witness in their right mind would have come forward in Timmins to volunteer information and indeed the investigation came up with diddly sqat. Joe Harwood later became the chief of the local police and got along fine with a Constable Paul Bonhomme who is in at least one civil document that indicates him as a perjurer. Bonhomme also committed perjury in 1998 to have a local critic charged with perjury. www.OttawaMensCentre.com
    • Posted 02/10/07 at 3:39 PM EDT

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