FORMER TORONTO DRUG SQUAD OFFICERS MUST FACE TRIAL, TOP COURT RULES

Five Men Lose Bid To End Corruption Case

Five former Toronto drug squad officers caught up in a massive
allegation of police corruption must face trial, the Supreme Court of
Canada said Monday.

In a 3-0 ruling, a panel of Supreme Court judges denied the officers
leave to appeal an earlier Ontario Court of Appeal decision that had
rejected a lower-court finding that their right to a speedy trial had
been violated.

The officers - John Schertzer, Steven Correia, Joseph Miched, Ned
Maodus and Raymond Pollard - are charged with falsifying notes,
robbing and beating drug dealers, and conducting illegal searches
between 1997 and 2002.

Monday's decision was an important triumph for Crown counsel Kenneth
Campbell: The original trial ruling had tarnished the reputation of
the Ministry of the Attorney-General, finding that it moved the
56-month case along at a "glacial" pace.

In staying the charges in January, 2008, Mr. Justice Ian Nordheimer
of the Superior Court said that the Crown acted without urgency in
disclosing material to the defence. "The Crown was sitting on its
hands rather than actively assisting the investigation," he said.
Judge Nordheimer cited damage done to the careers, families and
psychological welfare of the officers.

On appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned his ruling in
relation to five of the former drug squad officers, but upheld it in
the case of a sixth, Richard Benoit.

"We will be ready for trial," Patrick Ducharme, a lawyer representing
Mr. Maodus, said Monday. He said that not only did the defendants
lose their stay of proceedings, their counsel will now have to redo a
series of protracted, pretrial motions.

"From the perspective of the accused, it seems difficult to accept
that previous rulings that were not appealed - and therefore were not
challenged as incorrect - will require new rulings," Mr. Ducharme
said. "The accused are therefore placed in the uncomfortable
position, and some would say, unfair position of having to relitigate
issues that have already been decided in their favour."

The criminal charges against the officers first took the form of
Police Services Act charges. These were dismissed in the fall of
1998. Two years later, the officers were criminally charged with
fraud, theft, forgery and breach of trust.