Dad wants RCMP files on daughter expunged
A former mayoral candidate in the city of North Vancouver is taking the RCMP to court in a bid to expunge police files that he says jeopardize the volunteer work of his teenage daughter.
Kerry Morris, 57, says that when police did a criminal record check on his daughter for her volunteer work at a B.C. summer camp for youth, it produced two hits for minor incidents.
The first incident happened two years ago when the girl was 16 and on a school field trip and resulted in her receiving a bylaw violation ticket and a fine for possession of a cannabis pipe, he says.
His daughter “ended up taking the fall for someone else that had a pipe” and was “just the wrong person at the wrong moment to be holding something,” he said.
Morris says that at the time of the incident, his family was told by police that there would be no record kept of the matter because no charges were laid. But when the criminal record check was done, it came up on a database that keeps track of all RCMP files in B.C.
The second incident happened in April or May when his daughter was walking through a park with several other girls and police suspected them of smoking pot.
No drugs were found and no charges were laid, but again police entered information about the incident in their database, he said.
Since the record check was done, his daughter’s volunteer work this summer with young children at the religious camp, which she’s attended as a camper or a volunteer for the past 10 years, is in question.
Also at risk for her is a threemonth stint in the United States this fall as a volunteer with a church group feeding the homeless due to the fact that the information will likely be accessed by U.S. border officials.
The police files have not given his daughter an opportunity to defend herself, Morris says in a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
“These actions are tantamount to an act of slander by the RCMP against a citizen without affording that citizen due process of law,” says his petition. “This is a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
When the issue was first raised, Morris says, he went to provincial court but was told that because no criminal charges had been laid, there was nothing they could do.
He went to the RCMP, but was also rebuffed, and finally spoke to a Crown prosecutor.
“He came out and he said to me: ‘Mr. Morris, I’m dumbfounded by this. I think it’s completely wrong. I understand why you’re so upset. And I’m going to say to you, you need to fight this because you are just one family. This has got to be going on in thousands of homes all across the country.’”
In an email sent to Morris, a copy of which is attached to his petition, an RCMP officer noted that his daughter’s file is referred to on PRIME, the database that contains all police files for each unit operating in B.C.
“I have no authority to expunge or remove the file referred to,” says the officer’s email. “I believe your daughter is 18 and as such is an adult and therefore I cannot discuss any file on PRIME ... As a father I know it can be frustrating to learn of issues involving your child which you may not be fully apprised of.”
Retention of the files on PRIME is five years from the date of the incident, says the officer’s email.
A spokesman for the RCMP said there would be no comment since the matter is before the courts.
In November, Morris finished a close second to incumbent North Vancouver city Mayor Darrell Mussatto in municipal elections.