Ottawa cops ordered to pay wrongfully arrested, brutalized woman $254K

TORONTO A woman brutalized by Ottawa police during her wrongful trespassing arrest and left naked for hours in a holding cell nine years ago has been awarded $254,000 in damages.

The Superior Court award in favour of Roxanne Carr, one of the highest of its kind in Canada, comes after a nine-day trial that ended more than a year ago.

“The police actions broke my heart,” Carr said in a statement through her lawyer Lawrence Greenspon. “Patience is a virtue — sometimes it’s worth the wait because it helps others.”

Given the possibility of an appeal, Carr would not otherwise be speaking publicly, Greenspon said Monday from Ottawa.

In making the award, Justice Sylvia Corthorn faulted several officers for the disturbing series of events, but aimed much of her judgment at Const. Michael Adlard, the officer who set off a chain of events in August 2008.

Adlard had no grounds to arrest Carr without a warrant for what was, at most, a landlord and tenant dispute, Corthorn found. The officer then used excessive force to detain her, leaving her with injuries that included a bone fracture in her wrist, the judge said.

Court records show Carr, then in her late 20s, was renting part of a home in Ottawa from her boyfriend but he had called police to say he wanted her gone. Carr was sitting and chatting with a friend on the front steps of the house when, to her surprise, Adlard showed up.

Within eight minutes, Adlard had thrown Carr to the ground and arrested her. Corthorn rejected his shifting account that he feared Carr, whose rent was paid up and was entitled to be there, was about to lunge at him.