Former city police officer facing 11 charges
Former Calgary Police Service officer Denis McHugh faces 11 criminal charges, including kidnapping and obstruction of justice, following an internal investigation by the department’s professional standards section.
City police were contacted by a woman and her boyfriend on Jan. 18, 2016, with a complaint of criminal harassment.
Deputy Chief Ray Robitaille said the investigation that followed revealed alleged incidents the local police force felt warranted a sizable list of charges, far beyond the initial accusation.
McHugh, who was a constable with the Calgary Police Service for eight years until earlier this month while the investigation was coming to a head, has been charged with kidnapping, obstruction of justice, break and enter, breach of the peace, two counts of fraudulently obtaining a computer service, and multiple counts of breach of trust in connection to incidents occurring on July 9, 2015, and Jan. 15, 2016.
“It came in as a complaint of harassment — not the criminal charges that were laid (and are) before you. It was our subsequent investigation that determined the severity and seriousness of the incident(s),” Robitaille said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Robitaille went on to say there is “nothing positive to say.”
“These are serious criminal charges,” he said.
“That a member in uniform is accused of these crimes is deeply concerning — 99.99 per cent of our police officers go out every day to earn the public’s trust, and they work very, very hard to ensure Calgary’s a safe place.
“Any time that this type of behaviour surfaces, it’s a betrayal to all police officers and to the public.”
Police say that on July 9, 2015, the woman was in a northwest Calgary parking lot when she was stopped by an officer and issued tickets for not having the proper licence or insurance.
After her car was towed, the woman was allegedly offered a lift home to the northeast by the officer in question, which she accepted but claims took more than three hours while she was confined to the back of a marked police car.
Six months later on Jan. 15, 2016, the woman and her boyfriend allege they were returning home when a police car approached.
They say it was the same officer involved in the traffic stop, and went on to claim the officer asked the man to stay inside the vehicle and followed the woman inside the home without permission or legal authorization to do so.
Authorities also say the investigation revealed the officer was accessing police computer databases to obtain information about the two complainants during the six months between the July 2015 and January 2016 incidents.
Robitaille said he’s not aware of any previous relationship between the former officer and the woman — he said there’s no evidence to suggest they’d even met prior to the initial incident.
McHugh is scheduled to appear in court in Calgary on Nov. 29.