Do-it-yourself misconduct reports: T.O. police board rejects change call

Despite calls for change, the Toronto Police Service is the only force in the GTA that allows its officers to prepare their own misconduct reports — without any oversight — before testifying in criminal court cases.

Toronto’s current system is in contrast to Peel, York, Halton and Durham region forces and the Ontario Provincial Police, which use independent third parties to fill out the disciplinary summaries, called McNeil reports.

These reports are a critical part of the criminal justice system, which has the power to take away an accused person’s liberty. But to do so, a judge or jury must assess the evidence and credibility of witnesses, including police officers called to testify.

A McNeil report is a one-page document that’s supposed to provide a summary of any officer misconduct, so the Crown can decide what might “reasonably impact” a case and share that information with the defence.

The Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, a police watchdog group, asked the board to consider introducing a process that is “at least as good as other forces in the GTA.”

“(The issue) looks like a solution in search of a problem.” JOHN TORY MAYOR

The request was rejected at Wednesday’s monthly Toronto Police Services Board meeting at police headquarters, where chair Andy Pringle, Mayor John Tory and other board members voted to receive a status quo report prepared by Chief Mark Saunders.

The report concluded the current system is “effective, efficient, economical, in compliance with the Supreme Court of Canada’s direction, and low-risk to the Service.”

Councillor Shelley Carroll was the only board member to vote against receiving the report, after grilling acting deputy chief Rick Stubbings on how officers fill out their own reports without any “check and balance.” The “information that they have submitted to the Crown is factual, it’s based on evidence and hearing decisions, and that’s what gets to the Crown attorney, and that is legal,” Stubbings replied.

“How do we know it’s factual? Who looks at it to make sure it’s factual?” Carroll asked.

Stubbings said officers rely on information provided to them by the TPS’s professional standards, or internal affairs, unit. “They give the officer the information that they put on the form, they verify that that information is accurate.”

The senior officer also discounted a drug case cited by TPAC in a letter to the board as a “red herring,” since there was no finding of any misconduct. Last year, a judge tossed drug charges after finding a Toronto constable had withheld information in his McNeil report.

Stubbings said TPS representatives meet regularly with prosecutors from the Ministry of the Attorney General, and “we’ve had no complaints whatsoever from our Crown attorneys that we work with each and every day.”

Carroll wondered: “How would they know what to complain about?”

But Pringle and Tory said they were satisfied that Toronto’s self-reporting system is fine, because no one has complained about the reports being inaccurate or incomplete.

Tory said the issue “looks like a solution in search of a problem.”

Pringle agreed that without formal complaints, there’s no evidence “that we’ve got an issue here.”

“There appears to be the proper compliance. I kind of take comfort in that until I hear differently.”

After the meeting, Carroll responded to the Star’s request for comment on Twitter.

“The board seems more focused on the savings part of reform than the culture change part,” she wrote.

The board has created a task force, purportedly to bring transformational change to the $1 billion-plus organization, but critics see Pringle and Tory as obstacles to any meaningful police reform. During the discussion, Saunders told the board that officers would not jeopardize an investigation — or their careers — by wilfully misleading an administrative process, even if “it’s not perfect.”