This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Justice John McMahon announced a well applauded decision in a Toronto courtroom on Friday to withdraw charges against Leighton Hay and free him from custody. After announcing the decision, Justice McMahon apologized to Hay, who left the prisoner’s box and joined his family as soon as the judge made his ruling.
Earlier, the Crown had asked to withdraw the charges and said that it was not in the “public’s interest” to proceed. Spending the last 12 years in custody, Hay was charged and sentenced for first-degree murder that he still maintains to have not committed. Crown attorney, Andrew Locke, informed Judge McMahon on Friday that the Crown wants to withdraw first-degree murder and attempted murder charges, declaring that it was no longer in the “public’s interest” to continue prosecuting Hay’s case. 31-year-old Hay was convicted in the 2002 execution-style killing of 51-year-old Colin Moore, who was a well-known member of Toronto’s Guyanese community.
Hay’s lawyer, James Lockyer, of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, stated that “Leighton has been through a nightmare for all these years,” adding that “his walk into freedom today will be momentous for him and for us at AIDWYC.” Furthermore, Lockyer alleged that “this is a miscarriage of justice of the highest order.” During trial, the Crown argued that Hay had shaved his head so that he would not be immediately recognizable following Moore’s slaying since one of Moore’s two killers were described as heaving dreadlocks by an eyewitness.
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