SQLFusion - Dunlop sentenced to another 30 days for contempt

Dunlop sentenced to another 30 days for contempt

Ex-police officer still refuses to testify at public inquiry

Ottawa Citizen

04 September 2008

Shannon Kari, Canwest News Service

TORONTO - Former police officer Perry Dunlop will have to spend another 30 days in jail after being convicted of criminal contempt for repeatedly refusing court orders to testify at the Cornwall Public Inquiry.

Mr. Dunlop has already spent more than six months in custody as a result of a separate conviction for civil contempt for ignoring earlier orders by the inquiry to testify.

A two-judge panel of the Ontario Divisional Court said Mr. Dunlop would normally receive another three months in jail, but the sentence was reduced because of the hardship to his family and the fact he had been in protective custody as a former police officer.

Mr. Dunlop came forward in the mid-1990s to allege that there was a widespread ring of pedophiles in Cornwall and that his own investigation was stonewalled by police, the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General.

An Ontario Provincial Police investigation called Project Truth resulted in charges in 1998 against 15 men.

Only three cases made it to court. One man pleaded guilty to 12 attacks on 10 young men. Two other accused committed suicide.

The provincial government called the Cornwall inquiry to probe the allegations and the institutional response to the claims of widespread abuse.

Mr. Dunlop, who resigned from the Cornwall police in 2000 and moved with his family to British Columbia, insisted the inquiry was set up to "crucify" him and stated he had no faith in the justice system.

In a somewhat rambling submission to the two-judge panel yesterday, Mr. Dunlop said he had no criticism of the court and its sentences for the civil and criminal contempt.

"To put it in the best words of Perry Dunlop, my beef was with the Cornwall Public Inquiry. I wouldn't get a fair shake from them," Mr. Dunlop told the court.

"I don't want the focus to be the Perry Dunlop trial. I want the community to heal," said Mr. Dunlop, who was dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit with much longer hair and a bushy beard, in contrast to his clean-cut appearance in February when taken into custody.

The former officer wrote a 110-page account of his investigation several years ago. He has said he won't testify because he is unwilling to be cross-examined by lawyers at the inquiry.

The former officer's wife, Helen Dunlop, said outside court that her husband would never testify at the inquiry because the "fix is in" and it was set up to protect institutions that should have done more to protect victims of abuse.

The lawyer representing the Ministry of the Attorney General had asked for an additional three to six months in jail for the criminal contempt conviction.

The Cornwall inquiry continues to hear testimony from other witnesses. A spokesman for the inquiry said it would no longer seek to have Mr. Dunlop testify.