Ed Horne committed for trial on 62 sex charges

SEAN McKIBBON

IQALUIT — More than 60 of 72 sex-related charges facing former Baffin teacher Edward Horne have been committed for trial, following a two-week preliminary inquiry in Iqaluit that ended last week.

Judge Robert Kilpatrick discharged Horne on seven counts, while four others were stayed at the direction of the Crown.

But Kilpatrick committed 61 of the charges for trial, as well as an additional charge that arose out of the testimony of one of the witnesses.

“Mr. Horne is presumed by law to be innocent,” Kilpatrick said before making a ruling on the committal.

The committal on charges did not displace that presumption, but merely meant that the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing was such that “one might reasonably expect there was a possibility a properly instructed jury might return a guilty verdict after weighing the balance of evidence,” he said.

“We’re quite satisfied with the manner in which the matter proceeded,” said Crown lawyer Debra Robinson. She said that she and her fellow Crown prosecutor, Richard Meredith, had been working almost exclusively on the case since November.

“It’s taken a lot of planning,” she said.

The crown called 44 witnesses to testify over the course of the two-week-long preliminary hearing, Robinson said there were 50 complainants.

Horne has returned to the Yellowknife Correction Centre to await his trial. Robinson said a trial could take as much as a month to complete.

She said the most likely location for a trial would be Iqaluit, due to the logistical difficulty of holding separate trials in each of the communities that Horne’s charges arise from.

The matter is to be spoken to March 2, at the next assignment court date, to set a date for trial.