Glen Assoun’s daughter says probe of his wrongful conviction must become a priority

The daughter of a wrongfully convicted Nova Scotia man says that even in death her father is being denied justice. She's demanding an investigation of his case.

The daughter of a wrongfully convicted Nova Scotia man says that even in death her father is being denied justice — and she is demanding a stalled criminal investigation of his case become “a priority.”

Amanda Huckle says that she and her family were deeply frustrated when they learned last month that a police oversight body had stopped its three-year probe to determine whether RCMP officers broke the law when they destroyed evidence in the case that led to the conviction of her father, Glen Assoun, for murder.

Assoun died in June at the age of 67.

“I feel that Dad has once again been railroaded, like he has every step of the way,” Huckle said in a recent interview. “He deserves justice, and he never was able to truly experience that before he left this world …. It (the criminal investigation) needs to be a priority, instead of sidelined all the time.”

In March 2019, a Nova Scotia court acquitted Assoun in the 1995 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Brenda Lee Anne Way. After spending almost 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Assoun later received a compensation settlement from the federal and provincial governments.

In September 2020, Nova Scotia’s justice minister asked the province’s police oversight body, the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), to investigate whether police had engaged in criminal misconduct. And in March 2021, SIRT announced that to ensure transparency, its counterpart in British Columbia had agreed to take on the investigation. The probe was also to look into the role of the Halifax police.

But on Nov. 30 of this year, SIRT announced that the Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia had dropped the case because its workload had become too heavy.

Huckle, the youngest of Assoun’s three children, said the decision left her feeling “frustrated, angry and emotional.” She said she wants political leaders to ensure there’s enough money and staff to get the job done.