Inquest adjourned until Monday after lawyer declares conflict

A coroner's inquest into last year's canoeing deaths of Saultites Megan Mitchell and Erica Auclair Mitchell was suddenly adjourned today after a lawyer declared a conflict of interest.

Regional coroner Dr. David Legge adjourned the proceedings until Monday to allow local Girl Guide leaders to seek their own legal representation.

Until today, both the Girl Guides of Canada and the organization's local leaders had been represented by Peter Pliskza, a lawyer from the Toronto office of Fasken Martineau.

But after a 3.5-hour adjournment this afternoon, Pliskza announced that he had found himself in a legal conflict and would no longer be representing local Guide leaders.

Mystery document

Pliskza's announcement came shortly after questions arose about the authorship of a handwritten permission slip allowing Megan Mitchell to participate in the canoe trip.

Megan's grandmother and guardian, Judy Mitchell, denied writing the note, even though she said she had provided verbal consent for the 11-year-old to go on the trip.

The note was on the back of an envelope that the grandmother had signed, indicating it contained $25 for Megan to attend the weekend camp.

Judy Mitchell testified that there's no way that she would have signed the note as written because it contained a misspelling of Megan's name, something about which the 11-year-old was extremely sensitive.