Dunlop's sentence 'hard time'
 

Cowichan Valley Citizen (B.C.) 

Friday, September 12, 2008 

Lexi Bainas

Duncan's Perry Dunlop and his family are suffering through the last month of his imprisonment but it's been the hardest few weeks of the entire seven-month ordeal, according to his wife.

Helen Dunlop is staying in Cornwall, Ontario, the community the couple called home when Dunlop was a police officer. His attempts to blow the whistle on a suspected paedophile ring led to him finally being arrested and flown back east to testify at an inquiry into the situation. However, his refusal to do so netted him a six-month incarceration followed by another month on criminal contempt charges.

Family and friends hope he'll be released Oct. 4.

Helen Dunlop, who has been in Ontario since Aug. 28 said she's hoping the inquiry lives up to its recent statement that Dunlop will not now be asked to testify but is bitter about the apparent turnaround.

"At the end of the day, they've said the inquiry will carry on quite nicely without Perry Dunlop. So, why did they need him in the first place?"

The circumstances of Dunlop's arrest drew significant coverage here: he was arrested on a Sunday afternoon at his house while a crowd of supporters howled "shame" at the police. Then, Ontario officers quietly took him away through one door at the Duncan police station while his wife waited outside the other to accompany him to a court appearance.

Dunlop's subsequent treatment at the hands of the Ontario legal system has left his wife disillusioned.

"We all knew it was a vendetta, that Perry was the scapegoat. It was hammer the whistleblower right into the ground," she said.

Dunlop has been moved out of the Don Jail to the Toronto West Detention Centre where his quarters are "terrible," according to Helen Dunlop.

"His room has no window and what they call a 'suicide blanket.' It's so thick, it's almost like a mini-mattress. You can't tear it or tie a knot to hang yourself. He's not allowed any personal possessions. He spent the first day and a half with no toothbrush. He actually appeared in court in an orange jumpsuit because they've lost his clothes somewhere along the line."

There were even difficulties getting Dunlop his medications in jail, his wife said, but praised his determination. "He represented himself better than any lawyer could have and he brought all his papers in and legal stuff into the courtroom in a pillowcase. Perry even had to ask to borrow a pen or a pencil."

Dropped without even a visit by an expensive Ontario lawyer who had told the family he relished "the big cases," Dunlop was turned down twice for legal aid and stood up for himself in front of the inquiry.

Helen Dunlop is now waiting in Cornwall to make sure her husband is going to be safe before returning home to be with the couple's three daughters.

She said she's not even sure what will happen to her husband after his sentence is up.

"Under Ontario law, if they come and arrest you somewhere they have to get you back there. I asked the regional director of the correctional services this morning how do you intend to get Perry back to B.C. He replied that he didn't know.

I think they're just going to cut him loose from wherever he is. I hope on Oct. 4 that he walks out of OCDC and into my arms."

Once they arrive home, the Dunlops hope to take some time quietly recovering and rebuilding their home life but Helen Dunlop said bitterly, "Who is going to give us back 15 years? I've told the girls we're going to move forward as a family, that we love each other and we're going to be home soon but it's hard. I never had to go through stuff like that when I was a teenager. I know there are lots of other problems in the world but we were actually trying to help some of them and look at what's happened."

She said she will be forever grateful for the support of friends and "the total strangers that have walked down our driveway to help us."

The Dunlops are going to always be there for the community, she said. "We'll never leave the Cowichan Valley; it's where we were meant to be."