Alcohol consumed during meetings with former cop Dunlop: Leroux 

Cornwall Standard Freeholder 

Thursday, June 28, 2007 @ 08:00 

Terri Saunders             

A witness at the cornwall public inquiry admitted Wednesday alcohol was often part of the equation during meetings he had with a former city cop and a lawyer in the 1990s. 

Ron Leroux said there were many times when he, Perry Dunlop and Charles Bourgeois would consume alcohol either before or after drafting statements related to Leroux's allegations of abuse at the hands of several priests. 

"I had to put him in a taxi a few times," said Leroux, referring to Bourgeois, a lawyer who was acting for Dunlop at the time on a civil action the former cop had launched against the cornwall Community Police Force. 

"Were you drunk at some of these meetings?" asked Peter Engelmann, lead commission counsel. 

"Possibly," said Leroux. 

"Were they?" said Engelmann, referring to Dunlop and Bourgeois. 

"They were feeling good," said Leroux, who recalled leaving a hotel room once with the two men and spending some time in the hotel's lounge drinking before returning to the room to draft a statement. "We'd go to the bar, sit around, talk, have a few and go back up." 

Leroux went so far as to suggest Bourgeois was significantly inebriated at times and needed assistance with simple tasks such as walking. 

"I helped him down the stairs at three in the morning many times," said Leroux, "because he couldn't stand up." 

Leroux said Dunlop expressed concern for his own safety in the years after he was charged under the police services act with discreditable conduct. A board of inquiry later acquitted Dunlop of those charges. 

"He (Dunlop) said everybody on the force hates me," Leroux said Wednesday.

"He said, 'I gotta watch my back.' He said, 'I don't get any backup when I'm working.'" 

Leroux said he recalled a time when he visited Dunlop and was shocked by what he saw. 

"He could barely walk," said Leroux.

"He said he'd gotten beat up."

Leroux said Dunlop seemed to be focused mainly on alleged perpetrators being punished. "He said, 'We're gonna kick in some doors down there (in cornwall),'" said Leroux. "'We're gonna get these guys arrested. I'll have these guys thrown in jail. It's not a problem.'" 

Leroux said he supported Dunlop's efforts. 

"I thought, 'That's something I've wanted to do since 1956,'" said Leroux. "And he was going to do it." 

The inquiry adjourned early Wednesday afternoon after Leroux told commission officials he needed to rest. 

The hearings are expected to resume today at 9:30 a.m. 

cop car vandalized 

A city police cruiser was vandalized while parked at the cornwall public inquiry Wednesday. A cornwall Community Police Service officer who accompanies Comm. Normand Glaude to and from the hearings room walked to the parking lot at the start of the lunch break to find the unmarked cruiser had been vandalized. The passenger window of the vehicle had been smashed. Police are investigating the incident.