Exposing a cleavage that is likely to grow wider in coming days, former chief coroner Barry McLellan said he wanted to see Dr. Smith removed from his position in 2002 - but he was vetoed by his boss, commissioner James Young.
Dr. McLellan said he was afraid that Dr. Smith's presence as the province's top pathologist would undermine the confidence of both civilians and staff working in the coroners system - many of whom had already expressed their unhappiness.
"I was concerned about Dr. Smith continuing to supervise autopsies," Dr. McLellan told Peter Wardle, a lawyer for several families who are suing Dr. Smith. "I knew that members of the death investigation team were concerned, including some in my own office.
Mr. Wardle asked the witness how the dark cloud hanging over Dr. Smith could have failed to cause "alarm bells to go off" in the chief coroner's office.
"I think that question is more appropriately put to other witnesses," Dr. McLellan said pointedly.
At the time, Dr. McLellan was acting chief coroner. After he became chief coroner in 2004, he quickly ended Dr. Smith's role as supervisor of all autopsies.
By 2002, Dr. Smith's conclusions were being seriously challenged in several cases, including two where murder charges had been withdrawn by the Crown.
A major controversy had also erupted involving two instances in which Dr. Smith had lost evidence - a cast of a dead girl's skull and a pubic hair that was thought to be key evidence in a second potential homicide, and which eventually turned up on his office desk.
In other testimony yesterday, chief forensic pathologist Michael Pollanen acknowledged writing a memo last January in which he stated that it would be unfair to publicly disclose "the shortcomings of Dr. Smith without a recognition that he was involved in a Coroner's system of death investigation that has not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny."
