Accused pedophile Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh is appealing a court decision that said he can’t countersue his accusers.
Judges convicted MacIntosh on multiple counts of indecent assault and gross indecency following two trials in 2010. He was accused of molesting six boys in Nova Scotia in the 1970s.
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned those convictions in 2011 because the charges didn’t go to trial quickly enough. There was a 14-year delay, most of which was due to the process of extraditing MacIntosh from India. The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the lower court, ruling against the Crown’s appeal in 2013.
Police in Nepal arrested MacIntosh for luring a boy to a hotel room in 2014. He was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to seven years in prison. He returned to Canada after his early release in 2018, when he was 75.
Accusers sued in 2019
Robert Michael Martin, Dale Robert Sutherland, Weldon MacIntosh-Reynolds, Alvin MacInnis, Barry Alexander Sutherland, and Jeffrey Allan Hadley launched a lawsuit against MacIntosh in 2019. The six men alleged sexual battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of mental injury.
MacIntosh filed a statement of defence in early 2020 denying the claims. He then attempted to amend that statement in 2021 to countersue the plaintiffs for defamation. He alleged that the accusers’ statements to police, politicians, and media were defamatory.
In November 2022, Justice Patrick J. Murray ruled against MacIntosh. Murray sided with the plaintiffs. They argued that MacIntosh hadn’t filed the countersuit in time and that the limitation period on any alleged defamatory comments had passed.
On July 6, MacIntosh filed notice of appeal in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Now living in Quebec, MacIntosh is representing himself.
Cancer, COVID-19 caused delays, says MacIntosh
MacIntosh wrote that he has cancer and COVID-19 restrictions kept him from the courts. He also argued the plaintiffs hadn’t been in contact, and he was “content to let it be.”
“The appellant is of the opinion that the learned hearing judge erred in his decision not to consider Mr. MacIntosh’s illness, the complications of Covid, and the non-action by the plaintiffs, regarding the delay in filing a motion to amend,” MacIntosh claimed.
MacIntosh also claimed he didn’t know the hearing would include interrogation from the plaintiffs’ lawyer. He thought the purpose of the hearing “was only to determine whether the motion to amend could move forward.”
It’s not fair, MacIntosh argued, that his accusers can sue over decades-old allegations, but he can’t countersue over newer allegations of defamation. He made that argument during the hearing last year.
“The plaintiffs lawyer retorted that fairness is not an issue in this case,” MacIntosh wrote.
“Mr. MacIntosh was aghast, and he expected that Justice Murray would have spoken to the issue of fairness, however he did not. ls it then that he agreed with the plaintiff’s rash statement?”
MacIntosh argued there should be no limitation period because the alleged defamatory statements were published online.
“Unlike print media and broadcast media, social media via the internet is not transient, it is permanent, and perpetual; posted articles are continuously republished, they never die, they are relatively eternal,” he wrote.
In another section of the appeal, MacIntosh cited the plaintiffs’ “lack of trustworthiness.”
“When Mr. MacIntosh discovered the option of a counter-suit and decided to pursue it, he ascertained that it would be a difficult journey,” he wrote.
“Nevertheless, he decided to move it forward, knowing that the plaintiffs should be held accountable for their false claims and defamatory statements, and for their inappropriate actions, unlike in the criminal trial where there was no path to recompense.”
MacIntosh argues political interference
And MacIntosh alleged political interference in the judicial process by an MLA.
“A few weeks prior to Justice Murray releasing his decision, a member of the Nova Scotia legislature, a cabinet minister, rose under the protection of the legislature and issued a statement defiling and condemning Mr. MacIntosh,” he wrote in the notice of appeal.
In October 2022, Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Allan MacMaster, the MLA for Inverness, rose in the legislature to talk about MacIntosh:
Mr. Speaker, a notorious convicted pedophile has arrived in Nova Scotia. Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh was seen in the Strait of Canso area, possibly visiting to deliver documents to the Port Hawkesbury Supreme Court, as part of a countersuit he has filed to sue the very people he sexually assaulted when they were young boys.
MacIntosh is a psychopath who continues to find ways to hurt the people whose innocence he stole. I make this statement so that Nova Scotians are aware of his presence and to remind him that this man’s entire life has been centered around sexually assaulting children, including when he was a senior citizen.
Let us share our support in this Legislature for those six brave survivors who continue to stand and tell their stories so that other children will not have to risk contact with Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh.
MacIntosh suggested that because MacMaster and the trial judge are both from Cape Breton, the judge should’ve recused himself:
Mr. MacIntosh does not know the legislator nor is he aware if the legislator is known to Justice Murray; however, it’s been said in Cape Breton that “everyone who is anyone, knows everyone who is anyone”.
Mr. MacIntosh does not know Justice Murray, but from all reports he believes the learned Justice is honourable and that he has unquestionable integrity. Nevertheless, Justice Murray at least must have been uncomfortable in experiencing such blatant political interference from a high level of government.
The initial Judge assigned to hear Mr. MacIntosh’s motion to amend the defense, recused herself; assumably it was because she personally knew someone who might influence the case, perhaps a complainant, perhaps a potential witness, or maybe a loose-cannon loud-mouth politician.
Murray “erred in not doing the same,” MacIntosh argued.
MacIntosh called for a teleconference for this Wednesday. He’ll ask a judge to set a date to hear his appeal.