CASE COULD LEAD TO APPEALS: LAWYER

News two York drug officers were disciplined for making up notes on a case
months after a big investigation could lead to a flood of appeals.

Stephen Brown, the York Region representative of the Criminal Lawyers
Association, is not asking the Attorney General's office to review every
one of the officers' old cases.

But local defence lawyers with clients convicted on evidence primarily
gathered by the two officers will be taking a close look at those cases as
it could give them grounds to appeal, he said.

"When somebody goes to the length they did to create notes well after the
investigation, you have to question whether it's an isolated incident or a
common practice," he said.

Mr. Brown expects word to travel quickly in the legal community.

However, York Regional Police Chief Armand La Barge said it's unlikely
there will be a large number of appeals, considering defence lawyers would
have already had a chance to examine all the officers' notes during any
previous trials.

"If there were issues with the notes in these other cases, one would assume
defence counsel would have brought them forward at that time," he said.

And if it is the officers' credibility defense lawyers want to bring in to
question, he reminds them the two were never criminally charged.

Four men were arrested and $100,000 worth of drugs were seized after an
eight-month joint-forces drug investigation in 2001 involving officers from
Toronto police, OPP, RCMP and York.

But the charges were dropped in 2003 after it was discovered notes
belonging to one of the York officers had been written several months after
the investigation.

A subsequent Toronto police investigation concluded there were no grounds
for criminal charges, but two officers from the York drug squad, Det.-Sgt.
Robert Cullen and Det.-Const. Frank Doto, were brought up on disciplinary
charges.

Both were charged with neglect of duty in July 2004 and pleaded guilty.

Sgt. Cullen was docked 140 hours pay and Det.-Const. Doto docked 96 hours
pay at a sentencing hearing in February.

The two officers were transferred from the drug squad and are now assigned
to uniform patrol.

But even in their new roles, Mr. Brown said evidence they bring to future
trials could be called into question.

"I would expect any defence lawyer to bring up the officers' disciplinary
record under cross examination," he said. "This may have been an isolated
incident. We can't say there is an ongoing pattern. Just because it
happened on one occasion doesn't mean it's done by these officers every
time, but the questions will be asked."

However, Chief La Barge said it's unlikely anyone will find inconsistencies
with any of his officers' notes in the future, considering the force's new
policy on notebooks, put in place following this incident.

"I can tell you we have one of the most stringent notebook procedures in
Canada," Chief La Barge said.

These days, every officer must hand over his notes at the end of a shift
for inspection and be signed off by a superior officer.

"This is a situation, as an organization, which we've learned from. It was
a negative experience, but we never lose the lesson," Chief La Barge said.