CORNWALL PEDOPHILIA CASE

Jailed ex-officer gets 30 more days for contempt

Already serving six months for refusing to testify about his allegations, accuser sentenced again for ignoring court order

Toronto Globe & Mail 

04 September 2008

TIMOTHY APPLEBY

A former Cornwall, Ont., policeman who has spent the past six months behind bars for refusing to testify at a public inquiry stemming from his allegations of widespread pedophilia in his hometown was handed a further 30-day jail term yesterday for the same offence.

The sentence imposed on Perry Dunlop was greeted with dismay by dozens of supporters who packed the Osgoode Hall courtroom in Toronto and gave him a loud standing ovation each time he entered the court, handcuffed and clad in an orange jump suit.

"I wish I could choke you," a female spectator yelled at lawyer David Humphrey, a defence lawyer retained by the Crown as prosecutor, in line with usual practice, because Mr. Dunlop is a former member of the justice system.

"You're our hero, Perry," another called out at the start of the proceedings, which had the feel of a hearing for a religious leader on trial for his beliefs.

Mr. Dunlop, 46, was convicted of civil contempt of court and sentenced to six months for spurning a judge's order to appear at the ongoing inquiry scrutinizing institutional response to the 15-year-old sex-abuse allegations, which Mr. Dunlop still believes encompassed a ring of civic officials, clergymen and police officers.

Yesterday's hearing, however, involved a separate but related criminal offence of which Mr. Perry was convicted in March: ignoring an order from Divisional Court to appear before the inquiry, and instead granting media interviews in which he castigated the justice system.

Fuelled in large part by Mr. Dunlop's allegations, a provincial police investigation dubbed Project Truth laid 114 charges against 15 Cornwall-area men. But scant evidence of a conspiracy emerged and only one person - a bus driver - was convicted.

Representing himself, the bearded Mr. Dunlop addressed the court courteously but offered only the briefest rationale for declining to appear at the inquiry, presided over by Mr. Justice Normand Glaude and expected to hear evidence until at least the end of the year: If he did testify, nobody in authority would believe him and there would be a cover-up.

"I don't think for a second I would have a chance," he told Divisional Court Judges Lee Ferrier and Katherine Swinton.

Mr. Humphrey offered a different explanation for Mr. Dunlop's reticence: His evidence was "critical" to the inquiry and he feared a rigorous cross-examination.

Either way, Mr. Dunlop will return to the Ottawa-Carleton detention centre for another 30 days, where his status as a former policeman means he has spent most of the past six months in a protective-custody cell with few privileges.

He has been in custody since Feb. 17, when RCMP officers arrested him at his home in Duncan, B.C. Since then, he said yesterday, his world has turned into a nightmare.

"I lay in my prison cell and wonder, 'What's going on?' "

 His wife, Helen, told the court yesterday their family has been devastated by events, and she read out a statement in which the couple's 17-year-old daughter denounced "the corrupted justice system."In passing sentence, the two judges acknowledged that Mr. Dunlop's spell in jail has been unpleasant. But they were also plainly irked at what Judge Swinton termed his "open, continuous and flagrant disobedience" of the court order. And the core, sentencing principle in a case like this, she said, must be deterrence. 

Toronto Globe & Mail

The Canadian Press

September 3, 2008

TORONTO -- A former police officer who has spent the past six months in jail for refusing to testify at a judicial inquiry that he helped spark will be in a Toronto court today to hear how much longer he will remain behind bars.

Perry Dunlop was convicted in 2007 of civil contempt of court for refusing to give evidence at an inquiry probing the institutional response to allegations of a sexual abuse ring in the Cornwall, Ont., area. He was convicted of criminal contempt of court in March for refusing a judge's order to appear at the inquiry. Mr. Dunlop faces further jail time for the criminal conviction.

The former Cornwall police officer began investigating an alleged pedophile ring that supposedly involved senior civic officials, clergymen and police officers on his own time in 1993. Despite Mr. Dunlop's vehement allegations, police said they found no evidence of an organized ring. He has maintained that he won't testify at the inquiry because he has no faith in the justice system.

Mr. Dunlop's decision to "orchestrate" his arrest at his home in Duncan, B.C., to ensure maximum publicity played a role in his conviction for criminal contempt, Divisional Court Judge Lee Ferrier said at the time.