Lawyers would have "bombarded" Dunlop: Lortie

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

10 April 2008

Cornwall (Staff)

The one-time top intelligence officer for the Cornwall police says he understood why Perry Dunlop would not want to appear at the Cornwall Public Inquiry.

Staff Sgt. Claude Lortie testified Thursday morning that he was there the day in 1998 Dunlop turned over boxes of abuse disclosures to an officer with the Ontario Provincial Police's Project Truth team.

Dunlop would later be harshly cross-examined at more than one Project Truth sexual abuse trial about whether he withheld any documents.

“I can just imagine, in his mental state, thinking, 'Am I going to get the same bombardment from the inquiry?'” Lortie told Comm. Normand Glaude at the end of his examination-in-chief today.

As the force's intelligence officer from 1991 to 1996, Lortie was involved in a number of high-stakes organized crime investigations. Dunlop was a member of his undercover team in 1993, said Lortie, and after he returned to patrol duty Dunlop served in his unit.

“I liked the kid,” Lortie told commission counsel Ian Stauffer. “I thought he was a good policeman and I wanted to do what I could for him.”

Allan Manson, an attorney for the Citizens for Community Renwal, cross-examined Lortie as to how he came to the conclusion Dunlop would feel under attack at the inquiry.

“Court proceedings for police officers are tough. You people make it tough for us,” Lortie said.

“It always affected me, so I'm sure it would have affected Perry.”

Lortie's cross-examination is scheduled to resume at 2 p.m