KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – More than two years after the murder-suicide of Lionel Desmond, a provincial fatality inquiry was due to get underway in September 2018, but now it has been put off once again until sometime in November 2019.
The provincial government promised the inquiry in December 2017, and its terms of reference were later released in May 2018. As most are aware, the Afghan war veteran, who had been diagnosed with PTSD, shot his wife Shanna, 31, their 10-year-daughter Aaliyah and his 52-year-old mother Brenda on Jan. 3, 2017, before turning the gun on himself in the Borden family’s rural home in Upper Big Tracadie, N.S
See also: Raymond Sheppard: The role of racism in the Lionel Desmond case
Sources close to this writer state that these delays are largely due to a number of lawyers demanding more money per hour while the Desmond and Borden families are made to wait, thus adding more trauma and pain and suffering.
Word is that some lawyers feel that the Nova Scotia Justice Department is trying to limit the inquiry into the death of this Afghan war veteran by nickel and diming.
Access to justice is once more delayed for these African Nova Scotian families. With the passage of time it indeed becomes a tragedy within a tragedy and opens the door for changes in the truth and nothing but the truth…
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