CORNWALL PUBLIC INQUIRY

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

19 November 2008

Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD

 An Ontario Provincial Police supervisor once accused of neglect of duty told the Cornwall Public Inquiry he could have potentially kept a previously-convicted sex offender from abusing children.

But Det. Insp. Randy Millar said he simply didn't have the resources to keep an eye on Jean-Luc Leblanc after learning from Cornwall police in 1998 that the Newington bus driver had been seen in the company of young boys.

"If we would've had the manpower (it) would be ideal to go to Newington and set up surveillance on Leblanc," said Millar. "It just never made it to the top of the list."

The long-running inquiry is probing how institutions like the OPP reacted when faced with allegations of sexual abuse from decades earlier.

Leblanc had been convicted in 1986 on two counts of gross indecency.

In August 1998, the mother of two of Leblanc's victims told an officer with the Cornwall Police Service she'd seen Leblanc hanging out with boys at a local Wal-Mart and at the Cornwall Motor Speedway. Because Leblanc lived outside the city, the CPS passed the information along to the OPP. At the time, Millar was the OPP's area crime supervisor for much of eastern Ontario, including S, D and G.

On Tuesday, Millar - now an inspector with the OPP's eastern region criminal investigations branch -told the inquiry that because no one was accusing Leblanc of a crime, and because Leblanc wasn't under any parole conditions, he had more pressing cases to deal with.

Millar said he wanted to start surveillance on Leblanc, but with only six detectives at his disposal, he didn't feel he had enough staff available.

On Dec. 16, 1998, the OPP's Project Truth team - which was investigating rumours a pedophile ring once operated in the Cornwall area - was given Leblanc's name by a victim of another perpetrator.

Five days later, the OPP decided to set up surveillance outside Leblanc's home.

On Dec. 29, an officer saw Leblanc leave the home with a young boy. Leblanc would eventually be charged with 51 new sexual abuse counts involving 13 victims. He pleaded guilty to 18 counts in 2001, and has now been declared a long-term offender.

In 2005, the OPP's Professional Standards Bureau launched an investigation into whether Millar's inaction was grounds for a neglect of duty charge under the Police Services Act.

The standards bureau found that despite Millar's workload, he had a duty to inform both his supervisors and his subordinate officers of the information he'd been given by the CPS.

While there was "sufficient evidence" to bring disciplinary charges against Millar, the standards bureau decided against it because seven years had passed since the original incident.

Millar testified Tuesday that he agreed with parts of the standards bureau's findings. He said he should have issued a "zone alert" so that his subordinate officers would have known Leblanc was living in the area and had been seen around kids.

But Millar couldn't agree with the conclusion that he'd failed to tell his higher-ups.

"I had been in contact with my supervisors, toward the end of that year, a number of times," he said. "And they were very well aware of my lack of resources."

Millar also testified he also didn't inform Project Truth because he didn't feel the complaint fit its mandate.

Millar initially balked at the suggestion by Dallas Lee, an attorney for The Victims Group, that any sexual assaults by Leblanc between Sept. 10, 1998 - the date the CPS passed along their information - and the end of the year were "preventable."

"Given the information that I had? I can't see that," said Millar. "I mean, I would need a crystal ball to know that they were happening."

But Millar changed his tune after inquiry commissioner Normand Glaude pointed out he did have that crystal ball - in the form of a decade's worth of hindsight.

 "Well sure," said the officer, with a laugh. "I'd have set surveillance up on the guy right away. And I'm sure he would've been seen in the presence of kids."

The inquiry resumes today with a new witness.