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Hello Mark,

A colleague and I have been researching and reporting on the frequency with whichpolice officers come under criticism in court for lying. We have searched for cases

nationwide and found many. In almost every case we found, it is a judge who says in

open court that the officer lied or misled the court. The deception commented on by thejudge occurred either during the officers investigation of a suspected crime or during

testimony.

We understand that police officers have a difficult job to do and many do it very well. We

hope you agree that police officers must uphold the law at every step. We are doing this

research to understand the extent of the problem and whether there is a solution.

Weve attached an appendix, listing the cases that involve officers from your force. To

hopefully make it easier to field our queries, we have included some relevant details of

each case. The year assigned to each case represents when the judge found problems witha police officers testimony or investigation.

For each case, we ask:

1) Was the force or officer aware the judge commented on the officers conduct in open

court? Did anyone pass the courts concern and rebuke along to the force? (We askbecause we have been told that when it comes time for a court judgment, it is often the

case that police witnesses are no longer in court to hear what the judges say.)

2) Do you agree with the courts assessment of the officers conduct?

3) Did your force investigate the officers conduct to see whether discipline waswarranted? If not your force, did any force or authority investigate?

4) If so, what was the result of that investigation? If there was discipline, what was it?

5) Does the officer still work for your force? If not, why not?

Finally, some general questions:

6) In nearly 75 per cent of the TPS cases weve analyzed, the officers misconduct led tothe suspects charges being dropped, stayed or being outright acquitted. In the majority of

those cases, the suspects had actually committed the crimes they were charged with possession of guns, trafficking drugs, etc. They got off because of police misconduct.

Is it concerning that criminals are going unpunished because of improper police work?

What is the force doing, internally, to prevent this from continuing in the future?

7) Our list is made up of cases we found through searching court document and news

article databases, as well as interviewing numerous lawyers. While there are certainly

more incidents we have yet to find, our data shows the Toronto Police Service has amongthe highest number of cases per force in the country.

Why do you think this is?

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Are judges in Toronto perceived to be more critical of police and apt to say such things in

court?

Furthermore, of the 24 cases weve highlighted in the appendix, the majority have

happened in the past three years. This suggests an increasing frequency of judges raisingserious concerns over the credibility of TPS officers testimonies.

Why do you think this is?

We appreciate that our questions reference a number of different cases and that thorough

answers are not something that can be provided in a day or two. However, we think it is

fair to expect a response by the end of next week (February 17).

If you have any questions, please contact me at 416-869-4147.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jesse McLean

Reporter

Toronto Star