Top court agrees to hear province’s appeal against man acquitted in Derksen case

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This article was published 27/01/2025 (267 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s highest court has granted the province the right to appeal a 2024 decision that ruled the man acquitted of killing Candace Derksen after spending a decade behind bars could continue to sue the provincial government and City of Winnipeg.

Mark Grant’s lawyers first filed the lawsuit in 2019, seeking $8.5 million for wrongful conviction and imprisonment from the province, its attorney general and the City of Winnipeg. The statement of claim has been amended twice.

The province has twice moved to have his claim struck in the Court of King’s Bench, first filing a motion alleging it fails to disclose a reasonable cause of action or is an abuse of process, which was ruled against in 2023, before it again sought to strike the claim under the same grounds in 2024.

A decision last year by a King’s Bench judge ruled some of the issues raised by Grant’s suit, including DNA evidence, should be put to a civil court judge. The judge struck out other portions of the claim.

Provincial government lawyers then filed a motion to appeal the 2024 decision in the Court of Appeal. Court of Appeal Justice Marc Monnin, in a written decision issued Friday, granted the latest provincial government motion.

The province argued Grant’s lawsuit is seeking to re-litigate a legal issue and is therefore an abuse of process. That issue is that the appeal court previously found DNA evidence sufficient enough for the province to base its decision to prosecute Grant in his first trial — though the evidence was eventually ruled unreliable at his second trial in a lower court.

The province argued Grant’s allegations that the government lacked reasonable and probable cause to prosecute him can’t be proved as they’re inconsistent with the appeal court’s prior findings.

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“I am satisfied that the grounds of appeal raised by the provincial defendants are of sufficient importance to merit the attention of a full panel of this court,” said Monnin.

“The issue of whether there is a reasonable cause of action is an issue that can determine the outcome of the proceedings and bring it to an early conclusion without the necessity of what will likely be a long, drawn-out trial.”

A panel of three Court of Appeal justices will hear the province’s full arguments at a later date.

Derksen, 13, disappeared while walking home from school to her Elmwood residence on Nov. 30, 1984.

Despite an intensive search, it was six weeks before Derksen’s frozen and bound body was found inside an industrial storage shed on the other side of the Nairn Avenue overpass from her route home.

No one was arrested for decades, but in 2007, Winnipeg police arrested Grant, saying his DNA was found on twine used to bind Derksen’s limbs.

Grant was found guilty of second-degree murder, but the Manitoba Court of Appeal ordered a new trial partly due to shortcomings of the DNA evidence.

Manitoba Justice appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, but the country’s highest court upheld the order for a new trial.

In 2017, Grant was acquitted when a Queen’s Bench (now King’s Bench) judge determined the DNA evidence was unreliable and had no value.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

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Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.