Baby's death was a tragedy.Did it have to be a crime?

Prosecutors were told the case was not in the public interest, but they went ahead anyway, forcing a woman to relive her son's death in an ordeal that lasted three years

- JACQUES GALLANT

Lindsay Hewson’s son came into the world early and fast — born almost as soon as his mother arrived at the hospital in an ambulance, as the rest of the family was rushing over in a taxi.

“He was a beautiful baby, perfect size, big grey eyes, full head of hair,” she said. “As he got older, he was bright, alert, funny, active — and a smile that kind of changed people who didn’t like babies into baby lovers.”

Just 14 months later, a chain of challenging events would lead to the boy’s death, and his parents would be criminally charged.

The Crown’s decision to prosecute was so questionable that a judge took the rare step of suggesting it was not in the public interest to proceed to trial. But the Crown went ahead anyway, forcing a grieving Hewson, her partner, and the court system into a process that dragged over three years only to end in January with most of the charges gone and Hewson with no criminal record, and no jail time.

Hewson’s lawyers are left asking: What was the point?

They argue she should have never been prosecuted to begin with, as an under-resourced justice system is struggling under a massive caseload and serious criminal matters are being thrown out due to delay.

In the face of that backlog, advocates are calling on Crown attorneys to rethink which cases are actually worth pursuing, and to filter out more matters that are either weak or not in the public interest to prosecute. These calls come at a time of heightened scrutiny on prosecution decisions in the wake of the acquittal of Umar Zameer, who was prosecuted for first-degree murder in the death of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup in a high-profile case the Crown had been told by a judge was weak from the start.