Mountie who had work affair fights recall from New York

OTTAWA — In a case that threatens to expose the RCMP to new sexual harassment allegations, a senior Mountie has gone to court to challenge orders recalling him from his post in New York after being punished for having an affair with a female co-worker.

Supt. Paul Young is actively fighting his repatriation to Ottawa, arguing in court that it is a disproportionately punitive penalty and out of line with other sexual misconduct cases involving RCMP officers.

In a letter to the RCMP filed in court, Young’s lawyer alleges top officials in the RCMP have had sex with other employees without reprimand.

“I could easily name quite a few serving senior officers of the RCMP who have engaged in intimate sexual relationships with co-workers and/or colleagues from other federal departments and who were never subjected to a Code of Conduct investigation, let alone a suspension,” Ottawa lawyer Louise Morel wrote.

In the letter to Supt. Barbara Fleury, the director general of international policing, Morel also listed several RCMP members disciplined for sexual misconduct who faced lesser penalties than Young.

Young has taken the unusual step of asking the Federal Court of Canada to intervene and issue an injunction to stop his recall from the consulate in New York, where he works as a liaison with U.S. law-enforcement authorities. The case comes as the force attempts to overcome a series of highly public sexual harassment allegations by female officers that triggered internal reviews and a public-relations campaign by Commissioner Bob Paulson to repair the RCMP’s image.

Last fall, Young was disciplined for having an affair with a civilian coworker in Ottawa in 2008 and was suspended from duty.

Young claims in legal documents that, at the time of the affair, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of several incidents during his deployment as police adviser in Afghanistan in 2008, including a bomb blast outside his Kabul office. The PTSD made reintegration with his family difficult, he claims, and he was estranged from his wife. He says he has an unblemished record over a 31-year career with the force.

The five-month affair, Young says, was entirely consensual and ended on good terms. The woman was also not a subordinate, he says.

None of the allegations Young makes has been proven in court. The RCMP has not yet filed a response and the force does not typically comment on cases before the courts.