No justice for Hannah
On the morning of Sept. 1, 2016, a 64-year-old woman was found by passersby lying on the shoulder of Highway 101.
She had a broken pelvic bone, another break in her leg and a fractured bone in her shoulder.
She claimed she had been pushed from the cab of a logging truck after refusing to perform sexual acts on its driver.
Despite finding a driver that matched her description, who admitted leaving her unable to move on the ground, (but denied pushing her or requesting sexual favors), investigating RCMP officers didn’t believe her.
Five years later, the RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission has found the officers wrongly relied upon “stereotypical and myth-based reasoning” on how victims of sexual assault should behave and that, contrary to the officer’s evaluation, the woman’s statements were “internally consistent.”
It also found an RCMP sketch artist, who has since retired and refused to participate in the review, behaved inappropriately in repeatedly insinuating she was lying.
“The Commission has found no evidence that would have provided a rational basis for having such strong suspicions about (the victim’s) truthfulness,” reads the report published in December. No charges were ever laid. The report comes as cold comfort to the woman, now 70, who spoke on the condition only her first name, Hannah, be used.
“What I feel my story is about is that the police can make mistakes,” she said. “When that happens, it interferes with getting justice. A victim can be revictimized by the police’s mistakes.”
THE DRIVE
After a dispute with her neighbours in the Annapolis Valley that resulted in bylaw enforcement being called about her cat Daisy, Hannah became convinced her pet would be seized. It was the last day of her month-tomonth lease. Staying an extra day would mean paying an extra month’s rent.
So on Sept. 1, 2016, she put her cat in a book bag and walked out to Highway 101 with no set destination. She was picked up by a truck headed toward Digby. The two made small talk in the dark cab. When the driver neared an exit, he asked Hannah where she wanted to get out. She said she didn’t know where she was going.
This is where the statements diverge.
HIS VERSION
The driver told RCMP he said she could “sleep with him” but that Hannah misinterpreted his intention of his offering of a place to stay and demanded to be let out of the truck.
He said when he pulled over, she asked that he keep driving and let her out near a streetlight. He pulled over again at Exit 23 (to Deep Brook), under a light. He claimed the book bag she was wearing with the cat in it became hooked as she climbed out.
“He released the strap, and she lost her balance and fell backwards,” reads the account. “He tried, unsuccessfully, to grab a hold of the strap. He exited the truck and went to check on her, including by touching her leg and asking if she could feel it. She was screaming ‘why did you push me’ and he told her ‘I did not push you. You fell.’
He offered to call 911 but she refused.”
He left her and never told anyone.
HER VERSION
According to Hannah, after she said she didn’t know where she was going, he reached over and began rubbing her arm. “He said ‘What would you say if I asked you for a reward for the ride?’”
“I said ‘do you mean money?’ He said, ‘you know what I mean.’” She demanded to be let out. As she climbed out the strap of the bag got caught. According to Hannah, he came across the cab, with one knee on the passenger seat and said, “you have to pay, it’s the law of the road.”
“He pushed me through the top of my backpack and I fell back onto the gravel shoulder,” said Hannah. “He did it with real force.”
Hannah said the driver got out of the truck, came around, put his hand on her leg and asked if she could feel it. She didn’t respond. He said, “Remember, you fell, you weren’t pushed.” He drove away.
As Hannah lay on the side of the road, her cat crawled out of the bag and wandered away. Hours later, Hannah was found by passersby and taken by an ambulance to hospital.
THE INVESTIGATION
The next day an RCMP officer took Hannah’s statement at the hospital.
After calling warehouses and trucking companies, the officer identified a driver meeting the physical description provided by Hannah, along with details she relayed about where he said he lived and would have been travelling during the time Hannah was picked up.
The officer arranged for an RCMP sketch artist to interview Hannah. The investigating officer told the sketch artist she had concerns with inconsistencies in Hannah’s statement – namely that she didn’t look like she had spent hours on the side of the highway.
The sketch artist’s conduct during his 6.5-hour interview with Hannah on Oct. 4, 2016, along with his recommendation that he found her untrustworthy, was the basis for her eventual complaint to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.
The sketch artist began by making small talk, didn’t identify himself as an RCMP officer (he wasn’t wearing his uniform) and made jokes about the officers outside the room. Hannah, who was recovering from a full hip replacement resulting from her injuries, was not told a suspect had already been found based upon her earlier description.
Hannah cautioned the sketch artist a description was difficult since the cab was dark and she was looking at the road while they drove. The sketch artist told her that someone who has been victimized will remember the face of the perpetrator.
Four hours and 20 minutes into their interview, a sketch was shown to Hannah. There was some back and forth and adjustments made, after which the sketch artist asked her to give it a rating out of 10.
Hannah cautioned “you’re asking a lot” as she hadn’t got a good view of the trucker’s face but eventually gave it a 9.5 out of 10. The sketch artist left the room, returned 18 minutes with the investigating officer and revealed that he, too, was an RCMP officer. They told Hannah they didn’t believe she was being truthful.
The doubts they raised were to do with Hannah’s rating of a sketch that was of “generic male,” despite the investigating officer’s first impression that the drawing “somewhat resembled” the picture of the suspect on his driver’s licence. They also questioned why, when the driver initially pulled over along an unlit stretch of Highway 101, Hannah requested he keep driving.
“Why would you continue to accept a ride from him after he made such advances towards you…?” the officer asked. Said Hannah, “Because he stopped in total darkness, and I knew that I wouldn’t get picked up or seen or anything in total darkness. I needed to be under a light.”
Said the sketch artist, “But that’d be better than being raped,” to which Hannah replied, “I wasn’t expecting to be raped and I wasn’t particularly fearful. I was just saying stop and let me out. You guys are using the word ‘fearful.’ I used the word ‘disgusted.’”
The commission found the officers continued with lines of questioning “not based in fact” and “designed to create inconsistencies” in Hannah’s responses.
“It is difficult to understand why (the sketch artist) would have told Hannah about his experiences in dealing with ‘real victims,’ as if (Hannah) was not a real victim, and why he would have been so aggressive in seeking to challenge her, including by preparing a generic sketch to test whether she would approve of it,” the report reads.
After seeking an update on her case from the RCMP months later, Hannah learned a suspect had been identified based upon her description, had given a sworn statement and submitted himself to a polygraph. She was informed by the RCMP that the polygraph result was “inconclusive.” She wasn’t told that it was later reported that the equipment had been faulty. The suspect refused a second polygraph.
HER COMPLAINT
“Where the sketch artist found you deceptive and the accused did not confess to any wrongdoing, we are left with what we have. No Charges,” reads an RCMP email to Hannah in March 2017.
When Hannah filed her complaint against the RCMP it kickstarted a process that took four years. The RCMP first refused to apologize, then denied there was any wrongdoing and finally said she should have been believed.
Her formal complaint first led to an internal review by Staff Sgt. Ed Hubbard, commander of the District of Annapolis RCMP. In response to Hannah’s allegation that the sketch officer questioned her in an intimidating manner and refused to believe her, Hubbard summarized the sketch artist’s response.
“(The constable) related that he regularly deals with false allegations and often he obtains the truth through challenging witnesses’ recollection and reversion of events. It was (the constable’s) opinion, based on his training and experience, that at the time of the interview your version of events was not fully accurate and to fulfill his duties as a police officer he needed to challenge the inconsistencies.”
Hubbard acknowledged the experience would have been frustrating for Hannah. Her complaints were dismissed in his review.
Hannah had also sought the police report into her case via an access to information request. The RCMP had 30 days to respond, but it took 610 days and only after a complaint was made to the federal privacy commissioner.
Hannah also appealed Hubbard’s review to the RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission. By then the sketch artist had retired and refused to participate in the review.
In its report, the commission found fault with how the sketch artist conducted his interview, the decision not to believe Hannah’s version of events and the internal review conducted by Hubbard. “The Commission finds that both RCMP members displayed a lack of sensitivity towards (Hannah), as well as a lack of awareness that victims experience crimes and potential trauma in different ways,” reads the report.
The commission also noted the investigating officer, who only had one year of experience on the job, hadn’t completed courses related to interviewing victims of sexual assault.
Three months after Hannah was left on the side of the road, her cat showed up at a nearby house. Hannah was reunited with Daisy who is still with her.
After her hip replacement resulting from her injuries, she went through two years of therapy. She progressed from using a walker to a cane and finally to moving unassisted.
She feels she was robbed of her chance to have her alleged attacker brought before the criminal justice system by the way she was treated by the RCMP. She worries that other alleged victims face the same hurdles.
“This is not to say that there aren’t officers who put in days of quiet excellence and are dedicated to their jobs,” said Hannah, who added,
“We seem to live in a society where there are so few consequences for the perpetrators of a crime. Now I’m wondering if the police bungled this investigation, are there consequences for that?”