FORMER UNDERCOVER COP JAILED AT HOME

A former undercover police officer who fed information about the
location of marijuana fields to two men so they could harvest the
crop before police raids was sentenced to 12 months in jail Wednesday.

Justice Joseph Wilson, accepting a joint submission of the Crown and
defence lawyer Harry Black in the Ontario Court of Justice, gave
former Ontario Provincial Police Det. Const. Scott Duguid, 35, a
conditional sentence, meaning that he can serve his sentence at home.

Duguid, who pleaded guilty last August to breach of trust, told
Wilson prior to sentencing that his life as an undercover officer had
led to an addiction to cocaine, marijuana and alcohol that had
"clouded my thinking and eroded my values.

"I had lost it. Under a cloud of drugs and alcohol I began to
associate and socialize with the criminals I was targeting," said
Duguid, whose telephone conversations with the two men who harvested
the marijuana were intercepted by police.

"I did ask my supervisors for help, but help was not forthcoming," said Duguid.

But in his closing submissions on sentencing, Crown Prosecutor
Stephane Marinier pointed out that at the time of his arrest in
September 2003, Duguid had stated that he hadn't used cocaine for two months.

Duguid was "an integral part of the greed" of the drug trade, said Marinier.

"He gave the information to the bad guys so that the bad guys could
put drugs on the street," said Marinier.

Wilson noted that it's difficult for all those involved when someone
who has "sworn to uphold the law, in fact contravenes it."

Duguid, whose grandfather was an assistant commissioner of the OPP,
apologized to the public and his family for breaking the vow to
uphold the law that he "swore on my grandfather's casket."

Wilson also sentenced Duguid to 18 months probation to commence at
the end of his conditional sentence.