No hearings today. An eleven day recess! Hearings resume on the afternoon of Monday 21 April 2008. Retired S/Sgt. Claude Lortie will return to continue his cross examination.
That will give me opportunity to review and post testimony of interest with comments from the Derochie, Brunet and Lortie transcripts. Also opportunity to get some other documents scanned and up. My scanning software is still on my old worn out computer so have to first get it transferred and operational
I have copies of a number of the many letters of support which Helen has received personally. She has identified them only by geographical location in order to protect the anonymity of those who prefer not to be publicly identified. Some lovely letters. They have been and are deeply deeply appreciated by the Dunlop family. This is an exceptionally difficult time for them all. They miss Perry desperately. It is a comfort for them to know that people from across Canada and beyond care and are thinking about them and praying for them in these dark days.
Also ready to post is an essay Heather Dunlop (18) wrote for a Grade 12 law class assignment. I won’t say another word until you have a chance to read it
I was going to make two quick comments re retired S/Sgt. Claude’s Lortie’s testimony of yesterday (10 April ’08), one regarding the so-called Silmser “settlement” and Lortie’s upset that Perry had become the sole focus of investigation, and the other the mini kerfuffle which ensued from the ranks of the Cornwall Police Service regarding admissibility into evidence of a letter penned by Lortie in 1997.
I ended up poring through transcripts and spending far more time than intended on the first part. I will post the one for now and stick to the transcript from the kerfuffle.
(1) Lortie upset: The 15 October 1993 meeting
First, some timelines:
There was no action on the Silmser file from April 1993.
23 August 1993: Malcolm MacDonald asks Constable Heidi Sebalj that Father Charlie not be handcuffed when arrested.
02 September 1993: Dave signs the illegal $32,000 pay-off.
02 September 1993: Malcolm MacDonald letter to Sean Adams re cheque for $32,000 to be held in escrow until David Silmser advises police he does not want to proceed with criminal charges.
03 September 1993: Malcolm MacDonald sends a copy of a “statement” prepared by lawyer Sean Adams and signed by David Silmser. The statement is the 02 September Certificate of Independent Legal Advice.
09 September 1993: Brunet letter to Crown attorney Murray MacDonald advising that Dave had received a “civil settlement” and no longer wished to pursue criminal charges. Brunet asks for advice. By this time it was common knowledge that Murray MacDonald had quite some time earlier declared a conflict of interest in the matter and had said he would call in an outside Crown.
14 September 1993: Despite his conflict of interest Murray MacDonald provides advice and refers to Dave as “a very non credible complainant” with “an evident ulterior motive for making the complaint”!!
23 September 1993: Perry first becomes aware of sex abuse allegations against Father Charles MacDonald and Ken Seguin. (Perry’s WillState)
25 September 1993: Perry told Richard Abel, Executive Director of CAS, about the allegations and his fear that children were at risk. (Perry’s WillState)
29 September 1993: After calling the Crown the previous evening to set a meeting Perry meets with Crown attorney Murray MacDonald. MacDonald denied knowledge of the sex abuse allegations against Seguin. (Perry’s WillState)
30 September 1993: After further contact with Abel Perry provided a copy of the David Silmser victim statement. (Perry’s WillState)
07 October 1993: Chief Claude Shaver and Luc Brunet go to speak to the Apostolic Pro Nuncio in Ottawa. Then on to see Bishop Eugene Larocque, the Bishop of the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall.
08 October 1993: Larocque tells Shaver that Father MacDonald has homosexual problem but only with consenting adults (Perry’s Will State)
16 October 1993: Malcolm MacDonald is knighted into the Order of St. John of Jerusalem
And, as always, some “alleged” connections to bear in mind:
Former Chief Claude Shaver has been seen at the at the waterfront home of Ken Seguin and/or Malcolm MacDonald’s porn strewn cottage on Stanley Island. Ditto Murray MacDonald, Bishop Eugene Larocque, Father Charles MacDonald and others, some of the latter clergy and some police officers.
Now on to the 15 October 1993 meeting.
On 15 October 1993 Lortie went to see S/Sgt Garry Derochie. Derochie, Perry’s superior officer, had been assigned to conduct an internal investigation into Perry’s actions.
MR. LORTIE: I went in because I heard that Garry was investigating Perry Dunlop and I wanted to know what was going on with that.
Derochie has described Lortie as upset. Here’s how Lortie’s testimony in that regard went:
MR. LORTIE: …I probably came across as being a little upset that Perry Dunlop is being investigated and who else is being investigated here?
MR. STAUFFER: Okay.
MR. LORTIE: And Garry was pretty good about it even though I heard that he said I was beating my chest that night, but -– I’m sorry if he thought I was beating my chest but I had to get some answers there.
All of a sudden the focus was on Perry Dunlop. After this investigation that we had gone through, the one who is being investigated is Perry Dunlop …
MR. STAUFFER: — please correct me if I’m wrong — am I right in saying you’re saying the focus in on Constable Dunlop as compared to being on —
MR. LORTIE: Anybody else involved in the investigation.
MR. STAUFFER: Okay. As compared to the investigation itself like you know whether the Silmser matter should be going on or not?
MR. LORTIE: No.
MR. STAUFFER: No. As to whether it’s just Constable Dunlop as compared to any other officers?
MR. LORTIE: As opposed to any other officer that was involved in this case when there was obvious
flaws.MR. STAUFFER: Okay.
So, Lortie was upset that it was Perry, and Perry alone, who was under investigation.
The Commissioner tuned into Lortie’s description of “flaws.” As you will see, Lortie was definitely of the mind back then that there was criminal activity of some sort related to the pay-out:
THE COMMISSIONER: I’m sorry. Obvious flaws?
MR. STAUFFER: Can you expand on that Staff Sergeant? What do you mean by that?
MR. LORTIE: Well, the delay, not knowing — nobody seemed to know what was going on with it. And then by that time, I would have known about the payout by the Catholic Church.
And there is obvious other criminal activity going on when you’re starting to promise people some money to withdraw charges. There had to be more work done on this. It may not have been as a result of the Silmser complaint because the Silmser complaint, by the end of September, after finding out what was going on, would have been a real problem for disclosure because there would have been all kinds of letters there from defence lawyers and phone calls from defence lawyers in any part of our disclosures. So you can imagine that investigation is dead in the water.
But who actually initiated the contact between Silmser and the Church? Because there is a criminal offence that took place and we have to find out who started this.
MR. STAUFFER: M’hm.
A logical thought. Find out who started the process. But, as Lortie explained, that was neither the thought nor the focus at the CPS
MR. LORTIE: And none of that was being done. So I was a little put out by the fact that Perry Dunlop was being investigated.
Justice Glaude wondered if, during discussions with Derochie, a light had gone off in Lortie’s head that the payoff was illegal. Lortie testified he knew there was something amiss as soon as he heard about the payoff:
THE COMMISSIONER: So are you saying that when you spoke to Staff Sergeant Derochie, that the light had gone on in your head that the payout was illegal?
MR. LORTIE: Oh, it didn’t go on at that point sir. As soon as I found out that there had been a payout, there was something wrong.
Glaude presses on, and Lortie explains that nobody was talking to him! They were, it seems, upset that he had raised the matter:
THE COMMISSIONER: All right. Okay. And was being dis — was that — did you discuss that conclusion that there is something wrong with anybody else in the police force?
MR. LORTIE: Nobody was talking to me at that point sir. I think people were upset that I had brought it up.
In the end it seems that Lortie had deep faith and trust that Derochie would get to the bottom of things. However, as he explained, before Derochie had even finished the investigation it was turned over to the Ottawa police. And from there it was turned over to the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police), and from there it went to the Project Truth investigation. As you can see, at each step Lortie trusted that the facts would come out. By the time it reached Project Truth trials however the whole thing became bogged down in dislosure issues:
MR. LORTIE: What happened, all in that short time span from September 28th to probably the next four years [I do believe this is either a typo or Lortie misspoke. I think he means the next four months], I was told that Garry was going to do an investigation on the matter and I had complete confidence in Garry getting to the facts. And that by the time that investigation is complete, we’re going to be doing something. So I had total trust in the system at that point. I thought that the best avenue was to let Garry do his job.
Before Garry could finish doing his job, I was told that the Ottawa police were coming to do an investigation. And I thought, “Even better, now the facts are going to come out.”
Some months later, I read a press release that almost exonerated the Cornwall Police Force and I thought “Somebody missed the boat.” I never did see the report on — from Superintendent Skinner. But I thought, just by reading it, “Something is wrong.”
THE COMMISSIONER: Just by reading the press release?
MR. LORTIE: The press release. Because it made no sense from what had occurred during their interviews. They had made comments that there was a problem with the investigation to me.
I had provided them with a printout that they wanted of investigations that were in arrears from Heidi Sebalj. So the printout you have from the Ottawa Police force, with the assignment list, was printed by myself and I turned it over to them. And it was obvious that there were problems there. And I can’t remember how many cases were overdue and et cetera, et cetera.That was followed shortly after that,keeping my hopes in the system; I was told that the OPP were going to do an investigation. And I thought “There is a good police force; they’re going to take care of the matter. It’s going to come out.”
Some time after that, I found out that there was nothing. During that period of time Staff Inspector Wells is doing an internal on Perry Dunlop and the release of the statement. Perry Dunlop came to me and wanted representation and it was all provided for him. And I thought, “It will all come out” because Brendon Wells — Inspector Wells is a very thorough investigator. He is a no-nonsense thorough investigator.” So I thought, “It will come out.”
Shortly after that, it didn’t come out during the hearings that we went through. I was told that the OPP were starting Project Truth. And I thought “That’s it, it’s all going to come out.” And a number of charges were laid and then it became a maze of circular logic what was happening. There were all kinds of complaints at those hearings about disclosure.
Lortie testified that he was present when Perry passed several boxes of files over to Inspector Pat Hall. According to Lortie Perry had brought the boxes to the police station and asked Lortie to witness the disclosure to Pat Hall.
Lortie thought he had signed off on a document witnessing the disclosure but, unless there was another disclosure, the document was signed only by Det. Sgt. Pat Hall. Lortie said he may have been mistaken – perhaps he had just been asked to witness the disclosure. The date seems to be that of the 31 July 1998 disclosure. (Note here that on 11 June 1997 OPP Inspector Tim Smith told Perry that he, Smith, was at that time in possession of the material that Perry sent to Chief Fantino in December of 1996. It seems that for whatever reason the entire package delivered to Fantino did not get to the OPP, hence the subsequent meet and turnover of documents to Pat Hall.)
Here is how Lortie explained the day
MR. LORTIE ….he [Perry] had brought in a number of boxes and he had told me that they were his disclosure that he had given it to Fantino and he had given it to the Attorney General but it seems like nobody knows where all these files are.
…..MR. LORTIE: … he [Perry] advised me that Sergeant Hall was coming over with another officer to pick up the boxes, and he wanted me to be his witness. Sergeant Hall showed up a short while later, picked up a number of boxes. Perry had us both sign a paper that he had — that Pat Hall had picked up the boxes …. So I was under the impression at that point that Perry Dunlop had provided complete disclosure. That’s what my impression was. . .
….
MR. LORTIE: … So whenever they left with the boxes, I was under the impression that someone in authority had all the disclosure. By reading some of the newspaper clippings that came out regarding the trials that were ongoing, it became apparent to me that one of the main focuses that they were — that everybody was talking about was disclosure, and I thought, “He has provided the complete disclosure. He has given it to somebody that is supposed to look after that.”
Now, I don’t know who, after they got the boxes, divvied up the different investigations that were in those boxes and gave them to different defence counsels for their accused, but obviously they may not have divvied up the boxes properly if they didn’t have complete disclosure, and that has just been an assumption on my part. But I do know that he turned over a number of boxes. I don’t know if they were all the boxes he had, but he certainly turned over a number of boxes…
Yes indeed. The issue became disclosure. S/Sgt. Garry Derochie seems to have been the one who initiated this business of disclosure. My understanding, which I must clarify by reading the transcripts, is that Derochie was demanding disclosure of all the documents to the Cornwall Police Service for the sex abuse trial of Roman Catholic school teacher Marcel Lalonde, an self identified homosexual.
Why the Lalonde case was not turned over by the CPS to the Project Truth probe I fail to understand. Father Charlie’s case was turned over after charges were laid. Why not Lalonde’s? David Silmser alleged he had been abused by Lalonde. C-8 – before he mysteriously recanted – alleged he was abused by Charlie.
Lalonde was a joint CPS/OPP investigation. The OPP presumably had all of Perry’s files.
Charlie was arrested and charged March 1996. His case was turned over to Project Truth.
Lalonde was arrested and charged January 1997. His case was not turned over to Project Truth.
Why not? Who decided the Lalonde allegations did not merit scrutiny by Project Truth? And why?
Right now as far as I can tell the whole ruckus over disclosure started in late 1998 in relation to the Lalonde prosecution. By late 1999 Derochie was involved and after Perry to disclose and from there the whole business of Perry and disclosure seemed to take on a life of its own.
According to Derochie’s evidence of 04 March 2008 part of the issue he/they were pressing Perry for disclosure on was at least in part if not in totality regarding some notes which had already been disclosed in another case! Indeed in discussing these supposedly undisclosed notes Engelmann asked Derochie specifically “ Did you know why they were disclosed in one case and not in another?
Now how pray tell does this whole sorry mess devolve into Perry withholding evidence and refusing to disclose?
What other case are we talking about here? I am assuming it had to be one of the Project Truth cases. Since CPS was working with the OPP in the Lalonde investigation, and since OPP officers were handling the Project Truth probe, why did the OPP not disclose the notes to the CPS? What am I missing? Why does this become Perry’s doing? Perhaps I am missing something here, but seems to me the problem lies elsewhere.
Interesting too that Derochie testified he didn’t know the notes had been disclosed elsewhere until later!
This is all shades of the Leduc trial where one minute defence counsel was sticking a knife into Project Truth officer’s backs for a so-called failure to disclose. Then a recess, and a chitty-chat between defence counsel and an officer or two and little finger-pointing to the Crown on the part of the latter. Then, lo and behold the knife was withdrawn – and plunged squarely and deeply between the shoulder blades of Crown attorney Shelley Hallett – and that’s where it stayed.
Dirty business this is.
It seems to me that as soon as the Project Truth probe was struck in August 1997 the CPS should have promptly turned the Lalonde case over to Project Truth. But, they didn’t. And within two years Derochie started after Perry for “disclosure” to the CPS of documents which Perry had already disclosed to the AG, Fantino (hence the OPP) and the OCCPS. And, I am guessing here, but my guess is that Perry probably disclosed elsewhere because for a variety of reasons he had no faith in the CPS to handle the material.
One final comment re this portion of Lortie’s testimony. Lortie said:
MR. LORTIE: I think it’s totally improper during an investigation to try and make a settlement.
When asked by Ian Paul (Coalition for Action) if he thought an investigation was warranted because a settlement was transpiring at the end of a criminal investigation” Lortie replies:
MR. LORTIE: There’s one — there’s one or two choices here. That you have to talk to Mr. Silmser to find out who initiated the settlement and then you’ll know who committed the next criminal offence.
Right!
According to Dave’s testimony of 30 January 2007 he called Constable Heidi Sebalj in August 1993 to find out what was happening. (At this time there had been no action whatever on the file since April)When Sebalj returned his call he was told “We can’t go ahead with the case; it’s come to an end”. He recalls that she also said something about seeking an opinion from an outside Crown which, he said, made no sense to him at all because she told him it was finished.
Then, also sometime in August, Dave was contacted by Malcolm MacDonald, Charlie’s lawyer. According to Dave, Malcolm was calling “to try to settle matters.”
The rest is history.
Who initiated the “settlement”?!
(2) The kerfuffle
Proceedings came to an abrupt and grinding halt yesterday. I will simply copy the transcript verbatim. It references a 15 September ’97 letter from Staff Sergeant Lortie to Chief Repa.:
MR. PAUL: I understand that this is a letter in which you raise concerns about a matter involving a public complaint involving three officers. You raised that to the Chief?
MR. LORTIE: I’m going to read this, sir.
THE COMMISSIONER: Okay, let’s — give us a 15 minute here?
MR. MANDERVILLE: Mr. Commissioner, I’ve not seen this document before but scrolling through it on the screen, I fail to see how it’s remotely relevant to what you’re charged with looking into.
THE COMMISSIONER: Let me read the letter and then we’ll see. Thank you.
THE COMMISSIONER: Okay. So you have to deal with the objection first of all.
MR. PAUL: Yes. Relevance would be – the arguments to the relevance would be based on the fact that,first of all, page 1 there’s a reference to, in the middle, they had lied at the time of the internal investigation; that’s referring I believe to three officers.
Secondly, the last paragraph refers – or the second-last paragraph refers to the officers involved, one of whom is an upcoming witness in the case and the letter seems to imply some difference in treatment between the two — between the group of officers, seeming to suggest that one is treated worse than the other two.
So for those reasons, I would suggest it has some bearing on the — as to what was transpiring, and this witness seems to have some knowledge of it, writes a detailed letter and seems to be relevant to the credibility of the upcoming witness.
THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Lee’s getting up.
Groundswell of support here or —
MR. LEE: Yeah. I think it’s going to be more efficient because I had intended to go to this document as well and so I presume the same objection would be raised.
I agree with what Mr. Paul had to say, but I think another ground of relevance is may be the fact that there’s an issue as you know from Staff Sergeant Derochie’s testimony dealing with the provision of discipline records.
THE COMMISSIONER: M’hm.
MR. LEE: And some confusion about what should be done and what should be produced and what shouldn’t be produced?
It would seem that Staff Sergeant Lortie may have some knowledge of — based on the fact that he’s involving himself at this point on what ended up happening here — a discipline was imposed or not imposed – and possibly about issues relating to the willingness of the Cornwall Police to impose discipline.
And as Mr. Paul said, whether or not Lefebvre was treated differently than other officers; things along those line. It seems like this may well go directly to the discipline issue as well as to credibility issues with Lefebvre.
THE COMMISSIONER: All right.
MR. MANDERVILLE: Well, first off, Mr. Commissioner, if somehow this document is relevant and does raise credibility issues with another witness, it’s hardly appropriate to put this to Staff Sergeant Lortie.
Secondly, as you are well aware, sir, you are charged to looking into institutional response to sexual abuse allegations or abuse allegations. This letter, on its face, does not deal with that at all. It deals with other matters entirely.
Lastly, and I spoke of this briefly last week, Commission counsel, Mr. Manson, Mr. Kozloff and I reached an agreement, and it was an arduous process, as to what relevant discipline is. And documents were searched for and then have now been produced in connection with that. This does not go to that.
Mr. Lortie was not privy to what has been discussed and what has been concluded to be relevant discipline, and I understand you will become so, but it will not be through Mr. Lortie.
THE COMMISSIONER: Okay. So having heard that, Mr. Paul?
MR. PAUL: Just in response, I want to note that I wasn’t party to that agreement that he speaks of.
And, secondly, I would suggest that Mr. Lefebvre’s evidence I anticipate would be relevant to the Silmser case and the Landry cases —
THE COMMISSIONER: M’hm.
MR. PAUL: — and his credibility would be of issue there.
The document, on its face, would seem to suggest that this witness has knowledge of what the circumstances are in relation to an incident that goes to credibility that would — could well be very relevant to the testimony of Mr. Lefebvre if there is actually — whether there’s discipline or not, if there is actually evidence of an acknowledgement of some deceit or lie in relation to a complaint, and that was acknowledged to other officers, I would suggest that that would certainly be relevant to credibility.
THE COMMISSIONER: Okay. What kind of questions do you intend to ask him?
MR. PAUL: The questions I was going to ask is what the purpose of this letter was; whether it was to make a complaint to the Chief of unfair treatment or whether it was simply for information purposes.
And I wanted to ask what the nature of the alleged deceit was and what that involved, the details of who that statement was to and what it related to.
THE COMMISSIONER: Are you going to be asking the names of the police officers that lied?
MR. PAUL: Well, yes, I think the comment in the middle about sometime later a number of officers advised their supervisor, in fact, that the incident had occurred and they had lied at the time of the internal investigation, that implies — I think it implies that that’s the three officers involved. And I wanted to clarify whether if that’s the case if that’s the three officers that are referred to and if this officer is aware that’s the case and what the circumstances were. And, secondly, if he’s complaining — if the purpose of this letter is to complain about unfair discipline as between Hume and the other two.
THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you.
I’m going to permit some of the questions.
While this — I’m not really interested in all of the details with respect to this complaint or whatever, nor am I interested in drawing out names of all of the officers that may be involved. So I’m going to limit you to officers that may have some bearing on this matter.
I find that while the letter isn’t on four corners dealing with sexual abuse, I think it has to do with other relevant considerations, which is the state of the union, I suppose, with the local police force and how they dealt with matters and, of course. with the credibility of certain witnesses.
Go ahead.
MR. MANDERVILLE: I would reiterate, Mr. Commissioner — and I appreciate your making your decision on the fly.
I would reiterate that we did, in consultation with Commission counsel, reach an agreement as to what relevant discipline is. It means discipline imposed as a consequence of a sexual assault investigation or arising from a finding of deceit. That does not obtain in either — neither of those circumstances obtains in this letter and I believe I’m obliged to ask you to stay the case on this issue, sir.
THE COMMISSIONER: Okay. So can he ask questions?
MR. MANDERVILLE: I’ll object to all of them, sir.
THE COMMISSIONER: Comments from anyone else?
MR. STAUFFER: Well, Mr. Commissioner, might I suggest we put this matter off until the next hearing date so we can ponder this a little bit further and I can discuss the matter with other Commission counsel who had had the discussions with Mr. Manderville in terms of what discipline matters would be gone into.
Since I understand we’re going to rise at 4:15 perhaps, if I may be so bold, Mr. Paul could continue on with some other line of questioning and we can deal with this matter when we come back.
THE COMMISSIONER: Anyone objecting?
So done. Thank you.
See you — Officer Lortie, the Clerk date will announce the date on my leaving.
MR. LORTIE: Thank you, sir.
Word is this may be off to Divisional Court!!!
What do you suppose the Cornwall Police Service is trying to keep under the rug and out of the public eye now? Who is being protected? and why? By CPS lawyers funded trough the AG’s back door! With our tax dollars!!
And what are Commission counsel, Mr. Neil Kozloff (OPP) and Allan Manson (Citizens for Community Renewal) doing hammering out whatever kind of agreements behind closed doors which exclude input from other interested parties?
Enough for now
Sylvia