A former Port Hawkesbury businessman accused of sex offences against four young boys may not be in the clear after all.

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear a crown appeal of a lower court’s decision to throw out 17 convictions against Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh.

The convictions of indecent assault and gross indecency were overturned last year, with the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruling that a 14-year delay between the original allegations and the eventual trial was too long.

Senior Crown Attorney Jennifer MacLellan says her office has argued it wasn’t responsible for the delay.

“The position that we have taken throughout has been that the primary responsibility for the delay in this case lies at the feet of Mr. MacIntosh,” MacLellan says. “So that is the position that we have advocated at all levels of court here, and that’s the position that we will continue to advocate at the Supreme Court of Canada.”

The allegations against MacIntosh date back to the 1970s, but only surfaced in 1995, while he was working in India.

MacIntosh wasn’t extradited back to Canada until 2007.