Wrongly jailed B.C. man sues for compensation

A B.C. man who spent more than 26 years in prison for crimes he didn't commit has now filed a civil lawsuit seeking compensation.

Ivan Henry was acquitted by the B.C. Appeal Court in October 2010 after being convicted of 10 sex-related charges in 1983.

The lawsuit outlines several allegations of negligence against police officers and Crown counsel who worked on the case.

Henry, 63 when he was acquitted in October, is seeking unspecified damages for loss of liberty, loss of reputation, loss of enjoyment of life, among other things.

The Vancouver man was convicted of the rapes of several women in 1981 and 1982  — before the name of the offence in the Criminal Code was changed to sexual assault.

Crown and police errors

There were several irregularities in the prosecution of Henry, which the Crown did not dispute during the appeal.

Among them:

• Henry did not resemble the man described by the victims involved. 
• He was improperly held in a choke hold by police in his lineup photo, which was used by victims for identification. 
• And, although DNA tests were not in use at the time, a simple blood test could have eliminated Henry as a suspect.

The Crown and police also withheld information from Henry when he acted as his own lawyer at the 1983 trial.

The appeal court also found that the trial judge erred in explaining crucial instructions to the jury at the original trial.

Henry and his lawyer Cameron Ward declined comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.