REVIEW SOUGHT IN POLICE CORRUPTION CASE

Lawyers Allege Attorney-General's Office Intentionally Sabotaged The Case

The Ontario government must launch an "intensive" review - perhaps
even a public inquiry - into the prosecution's bungling of what's
been called Canada's biggest police corruption scandal, defence
lawyers, former prosecutors and police accountability experts say.

With a judge staying criminal charges against six Toronto police
officers because of unreasonable trial delays caused by the Crown,
the public needs to know why the attorney-general's office allowed
the case to languish, several legal experts said yesterday.

Yesterday, Toronto defence lawyer Edward Sapiano, who helped trigger
the corruption probe nearly 10 years ago, went so far as to allege
"the upper echelons of the attorney-general's office" intentionally
sabotaged the case by refusing to give prosecutors the resources they
needed to bring the case to trial in a timely manner.

The controversy that would surround the staying of charges would be
far preferable to a parade of witnesses alleging they were beaten and
robbed, Sapiano argued.

"The last thing in the world they want is witness after witness
taking the stand, testifying about how these things happened to them
and about our courts, our judges, accepting uncritically the word of
the officers."

Expressing concern about the "troubling" outcome of the Toronto
police corruption case, Premier Dalton McGuinty has ordered Attorney
General Chris Bentley to see whether the province can appeal.

"To say the least . . . the result is troubling. That's not a
reference to the decision. It's the result itself," McGuinty told
reporters yesterday.

"I know the attorney general is taking a very close look at this - to
explore what our options might be, but I can't comment any further on
that," the premier said.

Bentley told the Star yesterday that ministry lawyers are working
"around the clock" reviewing the decision to determine if an appeal
is possible. Brendan Crawley, an attorney general spokesperson, said
"workload is not an issue" within the eight-lawyer "justice
prosecutions" unit, the section that oversees prosecutions of police
officers. Crawley also rejected suggestions the ministry allowed the
case to collapse. Sapiano, who predicted publicly more than a year
ago that charges would be stayed, said there "absolutely needs to be
a public inquiry" into why the case collapsed.

"I never cease to be amazed at how incompetent government can be,"
said Sapiano, who helped trigger the corruption probe nearly 10 years
ago, after several of his clients complained of mistreatment at the
hands of drug squad officers.

"They knew this was a big case. They knew it was an important case
that had serious ramifications, not just for the alleged victims, but
for the justice system," he said.

"It doesn't get any bigger or more important than this, and yet they
seemed oblivious to this notion of trial within a reasonable time."

In his ruling, Justice Ian Nordheimer noted that as far back as March
17, 2003 - several years into the investigation, but before charges
were laid - Chief Superintendent John Neily, who was heading a Royal
Canadian Mounted Police task force into the case, wrote the
prosecutors, saying he was "extremely concerned" about "a lack of
overt action" to develop a prosecution strategy.

Defence lawyers representing the six officers complained repeatedly
over the years about delays on the part of the Crown in providing
disclosure of the evidence against their clients, the Superior Court
judge noted. But lawyers for the attorney general's ministry were
often unresponsive.

More than 110,000 documents were not turned over until after the
officers had gone through a preliminary hearing and been committed to
stand trial.

"There should be some sort of very intensive review of what was done
at the prosecutor's level," said Toronto defence lawyer Paul
Copeland, a co-founder of the Law Union of Ontario, which has long
been concerned about police accountability. "The ultimate result in
the prosecution is totally unsatisfactory from everybody's point of
view. I'm sure it's at least half unsatisfactory from the officers'
point of view, in that ... they don't get to clear their name."

"From the public point of view, if there was the case of corruption
in the force that the charges indicate, it's very important for the
public to know if that had been the case or not," Copeland said.

Sapiano's concerns were echoed by lawyer Bob Kellermann, also a Law
Union founder, who said he wondered, when the prosecution seemed to
be going nowhere, was whether Crown lawyers were "afraid of the
police or they're collaborating with police or trying to provide a
way out.""If that's the case, we're in a lot of trouble, because
that's suggesting . . . there was a cover up for many years,"
countered Howard Morton, a defence lawyer who spent 25 years as a
Crown attorney and once headed the Special Investigations Unit, which
probes case of alleged wrongdoing by police officers.

"I can't accept that. I mean, the counsel at the A-G's office are
really straightforward. They would not be a party to anything like that.

"The fear I have is that members of the public will think this
happened because it was the police, it (the case) was thrown out
because they were police," Morton said.

"I think there has to be an accounting by the attorney-general as to
why it took that long."

Former Toronto mayor John Sewell, now a member of the Toronto Police
Accountability Coalition, said there seems to have been "an
extraordinary amount of money wasted on this case."

"When you get (allegations of) serious wrongdoing by police, it's
really important to look at it hard," said Sewell. Coupled with
allegations of police impropriety, that's a "worrisome" combination,
he said. "Maybe we need a royal commission.

"We can't just abandon these things on a technicality and say 'these
things happen.' "

Meanwhile, the staying of charges against the six officers raises
interesting questions about whether the public will ultimately pay
for their defence, said Copeland.

In most cases, the police association (union) picks up defence costs
and gets reimbursed by the Toronto Police Services Board when
officers are acquitted, he said yesterday. It's unclear whether the
board would do the same in cases where charges are stayed, said Copeland.

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair declined to comment. "We have to wait
and see what is going to happen before we can say anything," said the
chief's spokesperson Mark Pugash. "We're not in a position to comment
on the case until we know whether the prosecution will appeal."

Pugash said charges under the Police Services Act cannot be
considered until all criminal proceedings are finished. Only three of
the officers remain on the force.

Former chief and now OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino was out of the
province and unavailable for comment. OPP Insp. Dave Ross said it
would not be appropriate for the commissioner to comment.

With files from Robert Benzie

sidebar:

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS "To say the least . . . the result is
troubling. That's not a reference to the decision. It's the result itself."

- - Premier Dalton McGuinty

"We have to wait and see what is going to happen before we can say anything."

- - Mark Pugash, spokesperson for police chief Bill Blair

"They knew this was a big case. They knew it was an important case
that had serious ramifications, not just for the alleged victims, but
for the justice system.

"It doesn't get any bigger or more important than this, and yet they
seemed oblivious to this notion of trial within a reasonable time."

- - Toronto defence lawyer Edward Sapiano, who helped trigger the
police corruption probe nearly ten years ago, speaking about the
Attorney General's office

"There should be some sort of very intensive review of what was done
at the prosecutor's level. "The ultimate result in the prosecution is
totally unsatisfactory from everybody's point of view. I'm sure it's
at least half unsatisfactory from the officers' point of view, in
that . . . they don't get to clear their name.

"From the public point of view, if there was the case of corruption
in the force that the charges indicate, it's very important for the
pubic to know if that had been the case or not."

- - Toronto defence lawyer Paul Copeland, a co-founder of Law Union of Ontario

"We can't just abandon these things on a technicality and say 'these
things happen.' "

- - Former Toronto mayor John Sewell

"The fear I have is that members of the public will think this
happened because it was the police, it (the case) was thrown out
because they were police.

"I think there has to be an accounting by the attorney-general as to
why it took that long."

- - Howard Morton, a defence lawyer who spent 25 years as a Crown
attorney and who once headed the Special Investigations Unit, which
probes cases of alleged wrongdoing by police officers.

Tracy Huffman and Robert Benzie