Winnipeg police sergeant didn't expect Mountie 'to lie': Driskell inquiry

A former Winnipeg police sergeant has accused an RCMP officer of lying and fabricating reports during testimony at the inquiry into the wrongful conviction of James Driskell.

Driskell spent 12 years behind bars for a 1990 murder before the federal justiceminister quashed his conviction last year.

One of recurring themes so far in the inquiry, which began July 17, has been miscommunication between the RCMP and the Winnipeg Police in relation to the treatment of Ray Zanidean, who was an important and controversial witness at Driskell's trial.

The inquiry has heard that Zanidean demanded and received tens of thousands of dollars and other perks in exchange for his questionable testimony, while threatening to change his story or recant altogether. Driskell's lawyers and the jury at his trial were not made aware of the deals, the inquiry was told.

Officers for the RCMP and Winnipeg police don't agree on how an immunity deal was reached for Zanidean, who was wanted by the RCMP in Saskatchewan for an arson.

Retired Winnipeg police sergeant Tom Anderson told the inquiry Tuesday that it was a Saskatchewan RCMP officer who offered to delay an investigation into the arson in Swift Current, Sask.The RCMP officer, Ross Burton, previouslytestified it waspolice in Winnipeg whooffered the immunity deal.

In questioningAnderson, Driskell's lawyer, James Lockyer, asked about Burton, who testified in the inquiry's first days.

"Burton told us that in the first call with you, sir, he got an immediate impression of you being deceitful and dishonest how come?"

Anderson replied that he didn't know and that it seemed to him that Burton misunderstood and misrepresented most everything he had ever said.

"It's as if Const. Burton was speaking one language, and I was speaking another," he said.

'Didn't expect an RCMP officer to lie'

Lockyer then pointed out several holes in Anderson's documentation about Zanidean and asked Anderson why he hadn't kept better notes.

"I was a little more naive in those days than I am today.I expected an RCMP officer to keep his word and not lie," Anderson said.

"I didn't approach investigations as if there would be an inquiry 16 years later and that someone who could confirm my evidence would be dead.I didn't expect an RCMP officer to lie and falsify reports.So I may have taken fewer notes than I would today, if I was doing this again."

The senior prosecutor in the Driskell case has diedsince the case was tried.

Driskell's first-degree murder conviction for the 1990 killing of Perry Dean Harder was quashed in 2005 after he had served more than 12 years in prison.

The justice minister cited several reasons for his decision, including new DNA evidence that showed hairs found in Driskell's van did not belong to the victim as the Crown argued at trial as well as problems with key witnesses and a lack of disclosure of information that could have helped Driskell's defence.

The Manitoba government then stayed the charges against Driskell, which keeps him out of prison but does not officially exonerate him.

The inquiry is probing the role of police, the actions of the Crown and questions of disclosure in the case. The commissioner has also been asked to determine when someone has met the threshold to be declared factually innocent or wrongly convicted.

The inquiry is expected to run another three weeks.