SQLFusion - Former Cornwall cop gets jail

Former Cornwall cop gets jail

LEGAL / Dunlop refused to testify at inquiry he triggered

Xtra.ca

Brent Creelman / National / Thursday, February 21, 2008

DEEP IMPACT. Ontario Provincial Police found no evidence of a paedophile ring in Cornwall, ON, but the fallout from the allegations hurt the city's gay community.

The former cop behind a paedophile investigation in Cornwall is in jail for refusing to testify at the public inquiry he triggered.

In 1993, Perry Dunlop began an off-duty probe into allegations of a Cornwall-area paedophile ring. Ontario Provincial Police launched their own investigation five years later but found no evidence of such a ring.

Still, the allegations hurt the city's gay community as the line between homosexuality and paedophilia became blurred in the minds of some of the city's residents.

A public inquiry was launched in 2005, but Dunlop has repeatedly refused to testify, and for that, he was arrested Feb 17 at his British Columbia home.

Dunlop was flown to Toronto for yesterday's hearing, where judges told him he will remain in custody until Mar 5. On that date, he will be sentenced for contempt of court.

Inquiry lawyers are seeking a jail sentence of three to six months but say Dunlop should be freed if he agrees to testify, according to the Toronto Star.

"I will never walk into that Cornwall public inquiry," Dunlop told the judges yesterday, reports the Star. "[I'd rather] go to jail."

Reader Comments

xtra you're letting me down.

I am really disappointed by the way xtra has covered this story. Many many members of the glbt community are survivors of sexual abuse & as a survivor I can tell you the LAST thing i would do is depend on the police force--notoriously unfriendly to both the glbt community & sex abuse survivors--to produce the truth in Cornwall. The fact that homophobes continue to conflate gayness & pedophilia is not the fault of survivors & should be labelled as what it is--homophobia--instead of dismissing the allegations of survivors, many of whom may themselves be gay lesbian trans or bi. It's my opinion & the opinion of many others that this lone cop was a whistleblower & is still being made to pay for believing the testimony of survivors. I wish xtra had done better research & produced a more nuanced examination of events in Cornwall. I'm a longtime reader & ...disappointed to be disappointed.

Katie, Toronto ON

02/27/08 5:50 PM EST