Police who lie: Attorney general orders probe of police deception

David Bruser and Jesse McLeanStaff Reporters

Ontario’s chief prosecutor will probe the issue of police officers who are found by judges to have lied in court.

Attorney General John Gerretsen made the announcement Monday following a Toronto Star investigation that found more than 100 cases of police deception in Ontario and across the country.

“The most important thing is that people tell the truth in court. The question really becomes: if a judge makes a serious comment (about an officer’s testimony) what should happen?” said Gerretsen.

James Cornish, chief prosecutor for Ontario, has been asked to look into the matter and report back by early summer. Cornish formerly headed the Special Investigations Unit, the province’s police watchdog.

“We should do whatever we can at our level of the administration of justice to make sure that people have faith and belief in the system. And if there are areas in which we can improve that, we should do so,” Gerretsen said.

The Star’s research looked at cases where a judge found a police officer lied, misled the court or fabricated evidence. In many cases, the judge tossed the evidence against a suspect. After officers lied in court, possessors of child pornography, a major ecstasy manufacturer operating out of a Scarborough house, drug dealers carrying loaded handguns, and others walked free.

Many of the officers were not disciplined for their courtroom conduct.

The Star found that Ontario, like most provinces, has no formal mechanism to investigate allegations of police lying in court. British Columbia appears to be the only province with a formal reporting system.

Gerretsen said he would consider such a mechanism or policy that takes the allegation of a lie and moves it to the appropriate authorities for investigation. “If there is a way in which we can improve the system so that people can have complete faith in our criminal justice system . . . we would definitely look at that, no question about it,” Gerretsen said.

“The point is quite simply this: our system is based on people telling the truth in court, whether they’re the police or anyone else,” he told the Star.

The attorney general said he will also be raising the matter later in the week at a regularly scheduled meeting with a group of chiefs of police.

In addition, Gerretsen will discuss the problem with justice officials in other provinces and at the federal level.

The Star found there is so little oversight of the problem that in some jurisdictions police forces did not know judges had found that their officers misled the court. Internal investigations into four cases — three in Peel Region, one in York — were started after the Star brought the courtroom misconduct to the departments’ attention.

Compounding the lack of oversight is a lack of accountability to the public. Big-city forces, including those in Montreal and Calgary, refused to say whether their officers were disciplined.

In British Columbia, if a judge criticizes the truthfulness of a police witness’s evidence or testimony, the prosecutor should report it to a senior Crown attorney. The prosecutor should also recommend to the police force that it investigate alleged misconduct.

“It’s also an issue of a more national scope and perhaps we can learn what some of the other provinces are doing in this regard,” Gerretsen said.

His announcement comes three days after the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said the justice system should report courtroom misconduct to the officer’s force.

Alok Mukherjee, chair of the civilian oversight Toronto Police Services Board, has said there must be a formal mechanism through which the prosecutor’s office notifies the force and the police board whenever negative findings are made about an officer’s credibility. (Many of the prosecutors trying cases in Ontario courts work for the Ministry of the Attorney General.)

Before the Star published the series of articles, Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash sent a combative statement in which he equated the language used by judges in the cases reviewed by the Star to “throwaway comments unsupported by evidence.”

“You either don’t understand, or you don’t want your readers to understand, the fundamental distinction between a judge’s comments and a judge’s rulings,” Pugash continued. “Without an understanding of such a basic point, your story cannot be taken seriously.”