OTTAWA - Romeo Phillion walked out of court Thursday a jubilant man.

The Crown withdrew the charge that he murdered Ottawa firefighter Leopold Roy almost 33 years ago.

And Judge Lynn Ratushny said she regretted what happened to the longest-serving Canadian to have his conviction quashed.

“It’s my birthday, 71 years old today,” Phillion said. “It’s a beautiful day. The judge apologized for the wrongful thing that happened to me. I waited 38 years for this.

“It makes me very happy. The best birthday I ever had.” Ratushny referred last month to what happened to Phillion as a “miscarriage of justice” but refused to force the Crown to have him arraigned and speedily acquitted.

However, she offered an apology Thursday after a tearful Phillion begged her to “just do the right thing.” “I see nothing wrong with saying I very much regret that all of this occurred and I do say that in my position as a judge,” Ratushny said.

“You want to hear the words that I apologize on behalf of the administration of justice. I do in the sense of regretting what has happened. I do apologize.” Ratushny also told Roy’s family ‹ although none were in court ‹ that he has not been forgotten.

The veteran firefighter was stabbed in the heart by an intruder in the apartment building where he was superintendent.

Phillion, a homeless drifter who confessed then immediately recanted, was convicted of murder in 1972.

His conviction was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal last year because jurors never heard that police investigated a potential alibi he was in Trenton at the time of the murder.

The appeal court stopped short of declaring Phillion's innocence, Crown attorney Hilary McCormack said Thursday.

The Crown won’t try him again, however, because there’s no reasonable prospect of conviction with witnesses dead or their memories faded.

Phillion’s lawyer, James Lockyer, said Ratushny’s words made up for the Attorney General of Ontario’s “shabby” refusal to grant an outright acquittal.

Lockyer remembers the day Phillion was released on bail in Toronto in 2003 and marvelled at the CN Tower. It hadn’t been built when he went to prison.

“It shows the enormity of what the Canadian justice system has done to him,” said Lockyer, who’s encouraging Phillion to launch a civil lawsuit against the attorney general.

“I think he’s got a lot to be compensated for.”