Complaints target Durham police brass
Officers’ allegations of abuse of power, coverup are ‘false and defamatory,’ says lawyer for chief
The Durham police chief and members of his leadership team have been accused of corruption, abuse of power and coverup by veteran officers who have filed complaints to the province.
Among the allegations sent to Ontario’s solicitor general:
Senior command threatened two officers with trumped-up accusations of misconduct in attempts to intimidate or dig up dirt on those who had fallen out of favour with the management, two officers’ complaints allege.
A high-ranking officer lied on the stand to “cover up for the chief,” and was then given a promotion to deputy chief, one complaint alleges.
A lawyer representing Durham police Chief Paul Martin said the allegations are “false and defamatory.”
“For some time now, a handful of disgruntled individuals within (or formerly within) the DRPS have been proffering baseless allegations to try to destroy the reputations of members of the force’s management and command,” lawyer Sean Dewart said in written responses to questions from the Star.
Ontario’s solicitor general has asked for an independent police watchdog, the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, to look into the allegations, which have not been proven. The commission has started a review to determine whether a fullblown investigation is warranted.
The complainants are longtime officers with Durham Regional Police Service, Canada’s 10th largest municipal police force, which patrols the region east of Toronto, including Oshawa and Pickering. One is a recently retired inspector whose responsibilities included presiding over internal disciplinary proceedings. Another is a veteran sergeant who says she received glowing performance reviews until she complained about a boss’s harassment. A third is the former president of Durham’s police union.
Dewart said most of the allegations have already been investigated and dealt with. He added that Durham police officials are “constrained from responding” on personnel matters.
Durham police will co-operate with the police commission’s review, said Dewart, who is also representing several other senior Durham officers named in the complaints, including Deputy Chief Dean Bertrim, former deputy chief Uday Jaswal and chief administrative officer Stan MacLellan. He is also representing the law firm Johnstone & Cowling, which does legal work for the police force.
In one complaint, Durham police Sgt. Nicole Whiteway alleges the police brass demanded she dish out unsavoury information about other Durham police employees in order to resolve what she said were baseless internal discipline charges against her. Whiteway, a veteran cop whose mother was the first female deputy chief in Durham, had seen her relationship with the police force deteriorate in recent years.
She filed an internal complaint in 2016 accusing an inspector of abusive and misogynistic behaviour. While that was under investigation, she says, officers tried to drum up information to discredit her complaint. She alleges officers tasked with taking her suicidal ex-husband to the hospital instead interrogated him in an attempt to get dirt on Whiteway.
Then, in 2017, she learned she was the focus of a new investigation by Durham’s professional standards unit, Whiteway says in her complaint to the province. Her ex-husband, who had been charged for assaulting Whiteway, had told the police force that she had stolen money and jewelry when she went to his apartment to pick up some belongings, according to her complaint.
It was a false accusation, Whiteway says, an attempt by her ex to get her to withdraw domestic assault charges (the ex has since pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with a weapon, one count of assault and two counts of uttering death threats).
Whiteway claims she and her lawyer tried to resolve the theft allegation, but Durham police was dragging its heels, suggesting that she “could be of assistance such that (Whiteway’s) charges would not be a problem.”
Then, in August 2018, she received a text message from then deputy chief Uday Jaswal, who oversaw the professional standards unit investigating her, Whiteway’s complaint says. He wanted to meet.
At a small-town coffee shop called Deadly Grounds Café, she alleges, Jaswal “confirmed to me in no uncertain terms that the DRPS did not think I stole anything and that we could come up with some kind of informal resolution.”
She says the deputy chief asked if she had access to a video filmed at a bar where he was allegedly “drunk and acting inappropriately.” He then fished for personal details about the other deputy chief, Chris Fernandes.
“It seemed to me that (Deputy Chief Jaswal) was looking for dirt on Fernandes of a sexual nature,” her complaint says.
After the meeting, Whiteway alleges, Jaswal and a lawyer from Johnstone & Cowling, which is retained by Durham police, again pressed her, through her lawyer, for information on Fernandes.
Jaswal and the lawyer also wanted information on a human resources manager who had taken a photograph of a whiteboard in Jaswal’s office on “which he listed people he was targeting,” Whiteway claims.
Whiteway said she refused to play along. “I was no longer prepared to be toyed with, used or extorted for political purposes,” Whiteway says in her complaint.
Disillusioned by her treatment by the police service, Whiteway’s parents, both former Durham officers, recently returned their formal retirement uniforms to a local precinct.
“My family is disgusted with what the DRPS has become and will no longer allow the crest of the organization in our family home,” her complaint said.
In a statement, Dewart, the lawyer representing Jaswal and the law firm, said: “These serious and scandalous allegations are false and defamatory.”
As deputy chief, Jaswal “was responsible for enforcing professional standards,” the statement reads. “He understands the importance of such matters and the effects such matters have on individual officers. He takes those responsibilities extremely seriously.
“The allegations are a smear by a disgruntled employee facing disciplinary charges, made when the deputy chief cannot provide a proper response to the merits because her disciplinary proceeding is ongoing,” Dewart said
He said Jaswal, now a deputy chief with Ottawa police, would welcome the chance to respond “in the appropriate forum.”
Chris Fernandes retired from Durham police in November. His lawyer said Fernandes will not comment on the case, but will “co-operate with an investigation if asked to do so.”
In a separate complaint to the province obtained by the Star, the former president of the Durham police association alleges he was threatened with accusations of misconduct in an attempt to silence dissent.
In early 2016, Randy Henning says he received a letter from Durham police’s lawyers accusing him of bribing and coercing witnesses to come forward for a labour grievance concerning Rob Wallington, a civilian who managed Durham police’s strategic planning unit. The grievance accused Durham police of failing to protect employees from Wallington’s harassment.
The accusations in the lawyers’ letter were false, Henning’s complaint said, adding that the letter was withdrawn after an arbiter ordered the police service to “explain the allegations.”
“This was just another form of intimidation,” says Henning, who retired from the police force this year.
The lawyer representing Durham’s senior officials disputes Henning’s allegations, calling them “false and defamatory.” He said it would be improper for the police force to comment on a matter “that has long been in the hands of an independent arbiter.”
That grievance was recently settled, a lawyer for the union confirmed. The terms are not public.
The Star first reported on Wallington after learning that a 2013 investigation by an outside law firm had substantiated several internal complaints of workplace harassment.
Durham police began a second investigation after the union brought new complaints. Its findings, detailed in a confidential report obtained by the Star, have never been publicly released until now.
The investigator, a lawyer retained by Durham police to review the allegations, concluded that Wallington’s conduct “was disrespectful and at times, appalling,” but it did not constitute workplace harassment. Among the investigator’s findings:
He made jokes to subordinates about another employee’s makeup, likening her to a “drag queen,” and made cracks that a stain on her clothing was from her husband’s semen;
He mocked an employee’s physical disability by imitating her limited use of her hands and would wince to colleagues when the employee accidentally banged her wheelchair into office furniture;
A third complaint alleges a high-ranking officer was promoted after lying under oath to cover for the chief
He made a stabbing gesture when describing the director of the region’s victim services program, who had scars from surviving a violent attack;
He received consensual oral sex from a subordinate inside his office;
He referred to two female staffers who had originally complained about his conduct as “bitches.”
Through a lawyer, Wallington refused to comment. He had been on leave from the police force since March 2016. That year, he made nearly $155,000, according to Ontario’s salary disclosures. He retired in late 2018.
A third complaint to the province alleges a high-ranking officer received a promotion after lying under oath to cover for the chief. In April 2018, Dean Bertrim, then a superintendent, was testifying at the internal disciplinary proceedings against two officers.
Lawyers for the officers argued that Durham police committed an abuse of process by violating a law requiring the chief to review a written report that establishes reasonable grounds before approving a disciplinary proceeding.
The investigative report in the case, the officers’ lawyers pointed out, wasn’t finished until 48 days after the charges were approved.
On the stand, Bertrim said he had given Chief Martin a partial report, according to a decision from the case.
Under questioning that day, though, Bertrim said he had no notes from his meeting with the chief. A copy of the draft report he said he had presented no longer existed, he testified.
The officer presiding over that hearing, Insp. Bruce Townley, was so troubled by Bertrim’s testimony that he ruled there had been an abuse of process by Durham brass and stayed the charges. There was no report — just some supporting documents — because the police had rushed to lay the charges before the limitation period expired, Townley’s decision said.
In his recent complaint to the province, Townley says Bertrim’s testimony appeared “simply designed to cover up for the chief.”
Townley’s complaint says Durham’s police board and Martin were fully aware of Bertrim’s “false testimony.” Yet, in November 2018, the Durham police board appointed Bertrim as one of the force’s two deputy police chiefs.
“Bertrim has been shown favoritism for covering for the chief in the above noted discipline matter,” Townley’s complaint claims.
A lawyer representing Bertrim and other senior Durham police officials called Townley’s allegations “false and defamatory.”
“A deputy chief is appointed by the police services board, not the chief. Every candidate must undergo a rigorous screening process that includes a written application, multiple interviews, reference checks and executive testing,” lawyer Sean Dewart said.
A retired Durham police officer cited Townley’s ruling in a complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), asking the agency to investigate Bertrim for his alleged “deceit.”
(The OIPRD is a different police oversight agency from the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, which is currently looking into the allegations detailed in this article. The Star has obtained a copy of the OIPRD complaint but the name of the individual who submitted it has been removed.)
The OIPRD has since closed the complaint file against Bertrim without taking any action, though a spokesperson said privacy laws prevent the agency from explaining why.
Townley retired from Durham police at the end of February after more than 30 years on the force. In his complaint before the OCPC, he says he was shortlisted for a deputy chief position in 2014 but passed over. Townley said he never complained and continued to do his job, “as would be expected.”
But Townley’s relationship with senior command frayed over his final year.
A friend and her two teenage children were gruesomely murdered, and while Townley worked the case and comforted the victims’ family, he says he received no support from senior command. He told Durham brass he was disappointed and the chief then accused him of insubordination, he alleges.
Over the following months as he combated post-traumatic stress, he says senior command gave him work with unrealistic deadlines in a “very transparent plan to overload me and then suggest I was a poor performer.”
Townley said he filed a complaint accusing the chief and a deputy chief of bullying and harassment, which was given to the Niagara Regional Police Service to investigate. A lawyer for Durham police officials said Niagara officers “thoroughly investigated these allegations and found them to be unsubstantiated.”
In May 2018, Durham’s police board announced that it was giving Martin a three-year contract extension. The then chair of the board said it was an expression of “total confidence in (Martin) and his leadership style.”
The announcement, Henning says in his complaint, came just hours after he finished providing the board with examples and documents showing alleged misconduct by senior officers.
By giving the chief an extension, the board members “showed they truly did not care what was going on in the service they are sworn to oversee,” Henning’s complaint says.
The chair of the board said he will not comment until the commission has finished its preliminary review.