Man convicted of killing young girl in Toronto granted chance at appeal after 34 years

After serving 26 years in prison for the murder of a 10-year-old girl, a Toronto man will have his case reviewed in court after the federal government found that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred during his 1990 trial.

On Wednesday, federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Arif Virani, referred the case of Timothy Rees back to the Court of Appeal for Ontario following an “extensive review" of the historical proceedings.

“A Minister’s decision to order a new appeal is not a decision about the guilt or innocence of the applicant,” a statement issued Wednesday reads. “It is a decision to return the matter to the courts where the relevant legal issues may be determined according to the law.”

On March 16, 1989, Darla Thurrott was found by her mother strangled in bed at her Etobicoke home.

Tim Rees, 25 years old at the time, had visited Darla’s parents the evening before and stayed overnight, according to legal representative James Lockyer. In 1990, Rees was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Thurrott and was handed a life sentence with no eligibility for parole for 15 years.

Rees attempted to appeal the conviction in 1994, but the application was dismissed.

He served 26 years in prison. In October 2016, he was released on parole.

Rees maintains his innocence to this day. In a statement to CTV News Toronto Wednesday, Rees said that for 34 years, he “has been branded a child killer.”

“I’m not and never was,” Rees wrote. “ I am angry at what the justice system did – for Darla, her real killer got away scot-free [and] for me, I have lost more than half my life.”

Timothy Rees, now 60-years-old, can be seen above. (Handout by James Lockyer)

NEW INFORMATION SURFACED: MINISTRY

The Ministry of Justice said the decision to send Rees’ case back for review was “a result of the identification of new information that was not before the courts at the time of [the] trial or [initial] appeal.”

According to Innocence Canada, an advocacy group that works to free wrongly incarcerated individuals, the “compelling” evidence in this new submission is an undisclosed tape-recorded statement of the landlord who lived in the same house, and slept across the hall, from Thurrott.

“The landlord, since deceased, had given a highly incriminating statement to the police hours after the murder but the defence knew nothing of it,” a statement issued by Innocence Canada Wednesday said.

“The landlord was able to testify with impunity, and falsely, that he never had a relationship with Darla and had not been in her bedroom on the night she was murdered.”

It is Innocence Canada’s belief that, if the missing tape-recording had been disclosed in 1989, “it is doubtful that Mr. Rees would ever have been charged, let alone convicted of Darla’s murder.”

The organization says it was originally members of the Toronto Police Homicide Squad who did not reveal the existence of the missing tape-recording in 1989, and that in 2016, it was members of the Toronto Police Homicide Cold Case Squad who found the missing tape-recording after they had been assigned to respond to Innocence Canada’s request for access to files.

When reached for comment, Toronto police said they would not comment on the case while it was before the courts.

"However, we are confident that all information relevant to this case will be thoroughly considered in the court process," spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said.

'A HUGE STEP FOWARD,' SAYS COUNSEL

Counsel James Lockyer called Wednesday’s decision “a huge step forward in establishing Tim Rees’ innocence."

“He was a victim of extraordinary non-disclosure,” the lawyer said.

Lockyer told CTV News Toronto he doesn’t yet know when the court will begin its review of Rees’ case, but that an appeal will “likely be heard next year.”

Since 1992, much of Lockyer’s practice has been spent fighting wrongful convictions, including the high-profile case of David Milgaard, a Canadian man wrongfully convicted of rape and imprisoned for 23 years who dedicated his life post-incarceration to justice activism.

Lockyer recently represented Bernard Doyle, an Ontario man convicted in the death of his partner’s 10-month-old toddler, resulting in Doyle’s exoneration in June.