COKE ADDICT COP TURNS IN BADGE

Barrie Officer Given Conditional Discharge After Pleading Guilty To
Discreditable Conduct

BARRIE -- A Barrie cop who got hooked on cocaine while walking the
streets nightly policing the seedy underworld pleaded guilty to
public mischief and handed in his badge yesterday.

Const. Rodney Hackett, 32, was given a conditional discharge and two
years probation, which means he will have no criminal record at the
end of two years.

Justice Glenn Krelove agreed to withdraw a second charge of theft in
connection with money Hackett took from a civilian after he booked
him in the police cells in 2002. The Crown agreed to drop the charges
after Hackett said he would resign and plead guilty under the Police
Act for discreditable conduct.

In an agreed statement of facts, Crown attorney Ken Anthony said the
charges stem from Dec. 3, 2002, when Hackett borrowed a pickup truck
from another police officer, then smashed it into a hydro pole while
he was "high" on his way to Washago to buy cocaine.

Hackett had the truck towed away and told police it was stolen from a
Tim Hortons in Barrie, but no sign of the truck showed up on video
surveillance.

Police located the smashed truck two years later at the home of a
Muskoka man who bought it for parts.

DOWNWARD SPIRAL

OPP took over the investigation and when two officers knocked on
Hackett's door, they found him stoned, court heard.

In a letter Hackett wrote to the judge, read out by his lawyer Harry
Black, the officer told how his life began to spiral downward after
working with drug informants.

"It was a life of high stress and violent crime ... I witnessed
suicide, homicide, violent assaults and crimes of the most awful
nature against children."

He tried to get transferred, but he was refused, he claims. "I hit bottom."

The Barrie Police Service sent Hackett to a drug rehab centre and he
has kicked his habit.

In his sentencing, Justice Krelove gave Hackett credit for pleading
guilty and making a $1,500 donation to the Royal Victoria Hospital.

"But you have brought shame to yourself and to the Barrie Police
Service," the judge said.