LIES, DECEPTION AND MANIPULATION OF JUSTICE SYSTEM

Lying police are reducing our justice system to a laughable
charade.

We expect police, upon whom the whole system rests, to tell the
truth.

Over and over again, we have seen that they don't.

Any police officer's testimony must now be treated with suspicion.

On Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask ruled that senior
RCMP officers Cpl. Martin Stoner and Staff.-Sgt. Peter Lea lied while
testifying in the drug-trafficking case of former boxer Robert Della
Penna.

Stoner had already misled another judge while seeking the wiretapping
authorization, Leask said in the Vancouver court. Both Stoner and Lea
then lied during Della Penna's trial.

After Leask threw out the wiretap evidence, the Crown threw in the
towel, saying it had no further evidence. Della Penna and three others
accused of operating a ring shipping marijuana and ecstasy to the U.S.
and smuggling cocaine into Canada were acquitted.

This incident is part of a disturbing collection of cases that have
revealed lies, deception and callous manipulation of the justice
system by police.

Two months ago, also in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, RCMP
Staff-Sgt. Ross Spenard admitted he was untruthful to a judge when he
concealed information about flaws in a forensic report in the case of
Charlie Rae Lincoln, a woman who ended up convicted of stabbing her
two-year-old child to death. Spenard also said he'd lied under oath
about a former colleague's work status, to protect the man's privacy.

The judge told the jury that Spenard's lies had tainted his evidence
so badly it had no value.

Last year, RCMP Const. Ryan Sheremetta was temporarily suspended after
giving false testimony in a coroner's inquest into the shooting by
Sheremetta of Kevin St. Arnaud on a Vanderhoof playing field in 2004.
Sheremetta had claimed he was on his back when he shot St. Arnaud,
while evidence showed he was standing.

And of course there's the Robert Dziekanski case, in which Mounties
committed outrageous fabrications in their statements after the fatal
Vancouver airport incident, only to be shown as liars when a
bystander's video came to light. RCMP brass also withheld from the
Braidwood inquiry crucial evidence that the officers involved had
discussed Tasering Dziekanski while on their way to the airport.

One of the three defence lawyers in the Della Penna case told me
yesterday that the Mounties' lying was not an isolated incident.

"I'm always very disturbed when I catch police officers lying, but it
certainly happens," says Elizabeth Lewis.

And often enough, Lewis says, officers will fill in evidentiary blanks
with "spin" in order to secure a conviction.

Trial Lawyers Association of B.C. president Robert Holmes told me that
the officers' deception in the Della Penna case seriously threatens
public confidence in the police.

"Is there more of an incidence of police not living up to their
obligation to tell the truth than actually gets detected?" Holmes
asks. "That may be the case -- we'll never know." Both Holmes and
Lewis noted that a great many officers fulfil their duties on the
street and in court with honesty and competence. The problem is, some
of them don't.

"The leadership in the police forces and the training [officers] go
through has to be rigorous in maintaining the truth-telling standard,"
Holmes says.

That's no lie.