Whistleblower in Elizabeth Towers scandal dies at 69

Last Updated: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 10:53 AM NT

CBC News

A police officer who tried to bring one of Newfoundland and Labrador's most infamous scandals to light has died.

Art Pike, 69, was a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer who gained notoriety — and a demotion — in the late 1970s when he leaked a police report regarding a fire at the Elizabeth Towers apartment of cabinet minister Tom Farrell.

Police investigator Art Pike, seen entering a 1979 public inquiry, leaked a report about a fire at Elizabeth Towers in St. John's.
(CBC)

Pike told a 1979 public inquiry that he leaked the police report to the Liberal opposition because he feared a coverup, as had happened at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in 1975.

The furor over the matter — in which Pike's information was in turn leaked to the media — prompted then Liberal leader Bill Rowe to resign, and led to defamation awards against the St. John's Telegram newspaper and CBC News.

Pike's revelations about Mount Cashel were only moderately reported during inquiry coverage in 1979, and not well understood for a decade, when the province learned that the 1975 RNC investigation had been shut down prematurely.

A police investigation reopened in 1989 led to a series of convictions against Irish Christian brothers who worked at the St. John's orphanage during the 1970s and 1980s.

Subsequent investigations led to convictions against brothers who worked at Mount Cashel in earlier years.

Mount Cashel was closed in 1990, and was later demolished to make way for a Sobeys supermarket.

A funeral service for Pike, who died Monday, will be held Thursday at Wesley United church in St. John's.