Province takes progressive action on possible miscarriages of justice after cop’s conviction By: Dan Lett Posted: 3:31 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

The facts that were stipulated in Elston Bostock’s guilty plea read like the outline for a great HBO limited series on police corruption.

Over a period of eight years, Bostock — a veteran Winnipeg Police Service constable with 22 years on the job — admitted he stole evidence from crime scenes, “fixed” traffic tickets for friends and associates, passed on confidential information from police databases to known criminals and shared texts containing a selfie he took with the naked body of a drug-overdose victim.

Three other WPS constables face charges stemming from the same investigation — dubbed Project Fibre — that caught Bostock. It is alleged that the other constables committed their offences while partnered with Bostock.

In the wake of the guilty plea, Chris Gamby, a spokesman for the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba, said justice officials should perform some sort of review to determine if anyone was wrongfully convicted of crimes based on evidence provided by Bostock and the co-accused police associates.

“Many of these accused who were eventually convicted may have served their sentences already,” Gamby said last week. “There is no way to get that time back… (but) miscarriages of justice are to be investigated wherever possible.”

Some justice officials would agree.

Last month, Manitoba Prosecution Services sent a letter to every defence lawyer in the province who has represented a client convicted in cases involving Bostock and the other three co-accused, asking that counsel review their old cases to see if there might be any viable concerns about a miscarriage of justice.

That message was underlined in a more detailed notice issued by Legal Aid Manitoba, which reminded lawyers they have a legal duty to “determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”

The notice added that if there is a legitimate concern about a miscarriage of justice, Legal Aid would consider that new evidence “and is prepared to fund an appeal.”

Not to diminish the importance of everything that has been done to this point, but it won’t mean much unless a thorough review is conducted on potential wrongful convictions.

Provincial governments get a lot of grief — and deservedly so — for the way they respond to possible wrongful convictions, so when one takes a more progressive approach, it should be recognized. And Manitoba Justice is, so far, doing it the right way.

In many instances where likely miscarriages of justice have occurred, the wheels of justice turn particularly slowly. Rarely, if ever, do justice officials devote time and energy to unearthing miscarriages; by tradition, that has to be done almost entirely by the victim of a wrongful conviction.

The result is that it often takes years to overturn a conviction, and years more to get any kind of compensation.

In this instance, Manitoba Justice should be applauded for essentially reverse-engineering the miscarriage of justice equation.

Rather than having concerns raised by someone already convicted of a crime, WPS did their job by undertaking a lengthy and complex investigation — including an “integrity test” sting operation — to catch Bostock and his co-accused. Then, Manitoba Justice followed up with a prosecution that produced a plea agreement.

Finally, the department followed through by initiating a campaign to ask defence lawyers to identify potential miscarriages, with a pledge that viable concerns will be supported by Legal Aid funding.

WPS did their job by undertaking a lengthy and complex investigation – including an “integrity test” sting operation – to catch Bostock and his co-accused. Then, Manitoba Justice followed up with a prosecution that produced a plea agreement.

The only thing left is to follow through and examine cases that are identified by defence counsel. Not to diminish the importance of everything that has been done to this point, but it won’t mean much unless a thorough review is conducted on potential wrongful convictions.

This will be a complex task, in large part because the potential victims of a wrongful conviction could very well have established criminal pasts. Remember, Bostock admitted to stealing evidence — money, weapons, drugs — from crime scenes. In other words, he was accused of a crime against criminals.

In general, the justice system has not demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm about seeking out or even giving thoughtful attention to new cases of wrongful conviction. You can bet that if the “victim” of the alleged wrongful conviction is a career criminal, there will be even less enthusiasm in some parts of the system.

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Part of that resistance is based on the fact that wrongful convictions are almost always seen less as human rights violations or systemic issues, and more as inconvenient truths that unfairly shake the public’s confidence in the work done by police, prosecutors and courts, the vast majority of which is fair and just.

Those who have studied the phenomenon would probably say that both views are correct: the vast majority of the work done in devotion to the administration of justice is fair and just; but wrongful convictions are more prevalent than most think and are most definitely the result of systemic issues.

Some, including critics for the Progressive Conservative opposition, have suggested the system is too overwhelmed to undertake this kind of review. We can only hope that is not a widely held opinion within Manitoba Justice.

Some, including critics for the Progressive Conservative opposition, have suggested the system is too overwhelmed to undertake this kind of review.

To this point, participants in the system, from the WPS through to the Prosecution Service, have done all the right things. With a bit of luck, they will follow through to determine if there is other wreckage these police officers have left in their corrupt wake.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.