Women win lawsuit against B.C. man acquitted of their sex assaults

By Canadian Press on February 5, 2025.

VANCOUVER — A man who spent 27 years in prison before he was found wrongfully convicted has been ordered by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge to pay $375,000 each to five women who sued him for sexual assault.

Ivan Henry was convicted of 10 counts of sexual assault in 1983, but he was released after the B.C. Court of Appeal determined he was wrongfully convicted and acquitted him in 2010.

Five women filed a civil lawsuit against Henry alleging he sexually assaulted them in their Vancouver homes in the early 1980s.

Henry represented himself at his trial in 1983, and he was given an indefinite sentence as a dangerous offender, but he was released and later awarded $8 million in his own civil lawsuit against the City of Vancouver and the provincial and federal governments.

The court ruling released today says Henry is liable for the sexual assaults because “it is more likely than not that he was their attacker and performed the sexual assaults … on a balance of probabilities.”

Justice Miriam Gropper says in her ruling that she doesn’t disagree with the findings of the court that acquitted Henry, noting that he should not have been convicted nor spent any time in jail.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press