CLAIM AGAINST DEPUTY CHIEF
Civilian employee alleges harassment
An Ottawa police civilian employee who says she was targeted as easy prey is accusing the force’s deputy chief of sexual harassment, unwanted sexual advances and sabotaging her attempts to become a police officer when those advances were spurned, according to a human rights complaint.
Deputy Chief Uday Jaswal, however, insists the allegations are baseless.
Jaswal’s lawyer, Ari Goldkind, told the Citizen in a statement that “he is very much looking forward to having the entire story told, and once it is, Deputy Chief Jaswal believes the residents of Ottawa, and the human rights tribunal, will see these allegations, and the clear motive behind them, for exactly what they are.”
The complaint was recently filed by a female civilian employee of the Ottawa Police Service alleging discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual harassment, sexual solicitation or advances. The complaint names Jaswal and the service (board) as respondents. The employee alleges that the advances toward her began after Jaswal learned she had been sexually assaulted. The Citizen is not revealing her identity as such.
“As a woman, I was merely a pawn in his end-game of personal sexual gratification, specifically targeted because he perceived me as a vulnerable, easy target. This realization has caused deep and painful wounds to my personal dignity and self-respect that I fear may never be repaired,” the woman wrote in her complaint.
“Jaswal made it clear that he wanted to pursue a sexual relationship with me, and implied promises related to an upcoming promotion after I refused his advances. Although I continued to try and remain professional, DC Jaswal persisted and his behaviour escalated to unwanted touching at a workplace event.”
The alleged harassment began in the summer of 2015, shortly after the woman says she was sexually assaulted. Jaswal called her personal cellphone to ask how she was doing.
She never told him about the sexual assault and assumed he knew because of his police authority.
She also never gave him her phone number, which she believed he accessed from a police employee database. She felt obligated to talk to him, according to the complaint.
In December of that year, Jaswal texted to meet for coffee, the complaint alleges. The woman agreed, feeling she had to meet with him since he was a high-ranking supervisor. During the meeting she told him she had separated from her husband and was in a relationship with an Ottawa police officer who had also worked under Jaswal.
He told her, the application alleges, that he had asked her for coffee because he wanted to date her.
Despite rebuffing Jaswal, the woman alleges he made advancements again in the following weeks.
“Jaswal sent me a text message once again asking me to go out with him, and in response to the topic of me applying to become a supervisor, he stated, ‘This is the kind of thing I can help with.’ ”
The advances continued, the application alleges, with Jaswal telling her she looked “gorgeous” in one of her social media posts.
The woman says she tried to change the subject, making a work-related comment and commenting on his grammar. He persisted, she alleges, by stating that her comments to him were “fighting words” and that “we may need to go for a drink and make up (smiley face emoticon).”
She told him that she was “not single and looking to mingle in that kinda way!” and then ended the conversation.
Ottawa police senior managers were, according to the application, aware of the allegations as far back as May 2016. The woman’s boyfriend, who she has since married, confronted Jaswal in the presence of two other managers and said he would file a formal police report if the advances continued. Instead, the complaint alleges, her spouse was reprimanded by managers for acting disrespectfully.
“I began dreading going into work and I began feeling abandoned by the OPS, specifically the OPS chain of command.”
In January of this year, at a retirement party, the woman once again saw Jaswal. “He greeted me and shook my hand, and then, in the presence of (an) OPS employee … who was watching and shocked by what she observed, DC Jaswal intentionally and overtly rubbed his hand across my stomach and hip area as he walked by me,” the complaint alleges.
“I was immediately frozen and shocked by this unwanted, uninvited and completely inappropriate touching.”
The woman had changed jobs to move past the issues with Jaswal and the incident made her feel “demeaned and brought back all of the issues with him that I had tried to move past.”
However, Jaswal’s lawyer says the complainant’s version of events are only one side of the story.
“When these allegations are carefully examined, with all of the witnesses and documents that can shed light on this matter being available and public, these allegations will be looked at very, very differently than they are at first blush,” Goldkind’s statement says. “They are just that, allegations.”
The woman also alleges her attempts to move from a civilian position to become a sworn officer were undermined by Jaswal after his advances were rejected. Jaswal, through his lawyer, also denies this.
The woman says she was told she was making it to the final hiring panel, but then found out she failed out of the process. In June, her spouse called Jaswal and accused him of using his power as deputy chief to have her removed from the process.
“Jaswal admitted that he was ‘in the wrong ’ with regards to his past conduct and sexual advances toward me, but he denied knowing I had even applied to be a constable,” the complaint alleges. He denied interfering in the process in any way and said he’d find out what happened.
Jaswal phoned her husband back and said she had issues with her background check and would get the inspector in charge of recruiting to give her a debrief even though debriefs weren’t typically done for unsuccessful candidates.
The woman has also raised issues about the inspector in charge of recruiting, alleging the officer had a conflict of interest and shouldn’t have been making decisions about whether she would be hired as a police officer. She requested a formal review of her rejection in two different letters to the force’s chief administrative officer in June and July. Those letters make no allegation of Jaswal interfering in the process.
The Citizen has also learned that a separate complaint exists regarding the woman’s spouse. He allegedly tried to barter her advancement in the officer hiring process in exchange for getting rid of texts between Jaswal and the woman. The complaint went up the chain of command, but was never investigated.
Sources also say the officer and the woman consulted the OPS ethics officer repeatedly throughout their attempts to get the matter addressed.
The woman is seeking $250,000 in remedies, to be reinstated at a pay grade to what she was making before she switched jobs within the service. She’s also asking for an acknowledgment of wrongdoing and more sexual harassment training.
Police board chair Coun. Diane Deans, in a statement, says the board “is committed to ensuring a positive workplace for members of the Ottawa Police Service that is free of harassment and we take these allegations very seriously.” syogaretnam@postmedia.com