It didn't take long for the actions of the Winnipeg Police Service to come under fire on the first day of the inquiry into James Driskell's wrongful conviction.

The inquiry will examine Driskell's conviction for the 1990 murder of a friend, Perry Dean Harder, which was quashed in 2005 after he had served more than 13 years in prison. The Manitoba government then stayed the charges against Driskell, which keeps him out of prison but does not officially exonerate him.

James Driskell and his lawyer, James Lockyer of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, in Winnipeg on July 17, 2006. (CBC)

The first witness at the inquiry was RCMP Insp. Ross Burton, who was investigating an arson case in Swift Current, Sask., at the same time Winnipeg police were investigating Harder's killing.

Burton's testimony focused on the key prosecution witness in Driskell's case, Ray Zanidean, and whether he received an immunity deal that was kept secret from the defence.

Burton told the inquiry Zanidean was a suspect in a house fire at his sister's home in Swift Current in 1990.

He said he received an unexpected phone call from a Winnipeg police sergeant who asked him not to go after Zanidean for the fire because they wanted the suspect to testify against Driskell.

Burton said he believed Winnipeg police had offered Zanidean immunity — without RCMP authorization — on the arson charges in exchange for his testimony in the Driskell trial.

Driskell's lawyer, James Lockyer, read an excerpt from one of Burton's reports, describing his interactions with Winnipeg police officers on the case: "Sgt. Anderson has been deceitful and dishonest in his dealings with us in regard to this matter."

When Lockyer asked if Burton believed Winnipeg police had, in the early days of the Harder investigation, "jumped the gun" in offering Zanidean immunity from prosecution, Burton agreed that that had been his speculation at the time.

Burton agreed with the assessment of Michael Code, the lawyer leading the inquiry, that Winnipeg police had told him Zanidean threatened to raise questions about his own testimony at the Driskell trial if he was charged in connection with the arson.

Zanidean was never charged for the fire. Neither the jury nor Driskell's lawyer was told about any possible immunity deals.

Burton also told the inquiry that after he heard Driskell's conviction had been quashed in 2005, he wrote a memo to his superiors detailing everything he remembered about the case.

Lockyer expressed surprise at hearing of the document's existence.

The inquiry will hear five weeks of testimony from people involved in the Driskell case.

Inquiry commissioner Patrick LeSage will probe the role of police, the actions of the Crown and questions of disclosure in the case.  LeSage has also been asked to determine when someone has met the threshold to be declared factually innocent or wrongly convicted.