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No charges to be laid in Brian Sinclair's death: police

By: Staff Writer

Tuesday, Jul. 10, 2012 at 3:30 PM | Comments: 0

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Winnipeg Police Chief Keith McCaskill addresses the media regarding the Brian Sinclair investigation at the Public Safety Building as lead investigator Det. Sgt. John O'Donovan looks on, Tuesday.

No criminal charges will be laid in the death of Brian Sinclair in a Winnipeg hospital waiting room in 2008, Winnipeg police chief Keith McCaskill confirmed this morning.

Enlarge Image

Brian Sinclair (MAURICE BRUNEAU PHOTO)

McCaskill said a senior Crown attorney from Saskatchewan Justice reviewed a Winnipeg Police Service investigation and determined that no charges are warranted.

What was said:

"The crown opinion is charges are not warranted in this matter."

"There will be, obviously, a public inquest at this point."

"Cost isn't the matter here."

"The investigation itself provides all the facts. The crown determines, in this particular case, whether or not there is sufficient grounds for charges."

"The case was so unique, so different, so we just presented the facts [without making a recommendation for charges]."

-- Winnipeg police chief Keith McCaskill

"The investigation itself provides all the facts. The Crown determines, in this particular case, whether or not there is sufficient grounds for charges," said McCaskill. "The Crown opinion indicates that charges are not warranted in this matter."

Sinclair, a 45-year-old double amputee, died in 2008 of a treatable bladder infection at the Health Sciences Centre after waiting 34 hours for treatment. The WRHA recently paid Sinclair’s family $110,000 on a portion of their lawsuit dealing with Sinclair’s wrongful death.

In October 2010, a complete investigation was ordered by McCaskill. Investigators spent 10 months on the file, interviewing 170 witnesses, including patients, visitors and staff at HSC, and examining some 5,000 pages of documents.

"When we started the investigation, we started on a broad review, and it worked its way down to a core group of individuals," said Det.-Sgt. John O'Donovan.

"There were only several people had contact with Mr. Sinclair and these were the people that the Crown had to scrutinize what they do, what their involvement was."

O'Donovan said about 16 to 20 officers were involved in the investigation, which he described as being unlike any others in Canada. He said charges contemplated included criminal negligence and failing to provide necessities of life.

"John was given free rein," said McCaskill, who said he was concerned about what he heard about the case.

Findings 'unfortunate': Sinclair family lawyer

Vilko Zbogar, the Toronto-based lawyer for the Sinclair family, said the findings by police were "unfortunate."

"Obviously... it’s not the result that the family was hoping for," said Zbogar.

"They’ve always said they’ve got three things they want to achieve. They want to get to the bottom of what happened, find the truth, they want to hold those responsible for ignoring Brian Sinclair to death accountable, and they want to make changes to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Now this, unfortunately, won’t achieve any of those objectives."

He said the "silver lining" is that it means the inquest can "get back on track."

Zbogar hadn’t spoke with Robert Sinclair, the family’s spokesman and a cousin of Brian Sinclair’s, by early Tuesday afternoon, but said the family did not understand the reasons the decision not to press charges was made.

"That’s unfortunate in a case of this public importance. We think the public should be entitled to know the reasons why such an important decision was made, as a matter of transparency and accountability," said Zbogar.

The family has a lawsuit worth more than $1.6-million filed in relation to Sinclair’s death, which Zbogar said is "tied up in some preliminary motions."

Looking forward to inquest: WRHA

Officials with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) said they were "pleased" the independent review was finished.

"This will now allow the inquest to proceed in a timely manner," the organization said in a prepared statement.

"Mr. Sinclair’s death in September 2008 was a tragedy that could have been prevented. For that, we have apologized to his family. While mistakes were made and opportunities missed, no one intended to harm Mr. Sinclair.

"A number of changes were immediately implemented to improve safety and procedures in Emergency Department waiting rooms at HSC and other EDs in Winnipeg. We are now looking forward to the start of the inquest and to receiving its recommendations."

History

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:10 AM CDT:
updates with decision, full writethru

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:13 AM CDT:
updates

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:22 AM CDT:
updates with more info on O'Donovan, quote from McCaskill

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:44 AM CDT:
adds photo

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 11:53 AM CDT:
adds fact box with quotes

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 12:45 PM CDT:
adds video

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 1:05 PM CDT:
adds reaction from Sinclair's family via lawyer

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 2:26 PM CDT:
Adds WRHA statement, more details from family.

Updated on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 3:30 PM CDT:
corrects typo

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