Parsons Wikipedia investigation wraps up

Military to handle disciplinary action

Military police are done investigating a Canadian Forces member for online comments made about Rehtaeh Parsons and have sent their findings to his unit.

“The Canadian Forces Military Police have concluded their investigation and a report has been distributed to the member’s unit for possible administrative or disciplinary action,” Capt. Cameron Hillier wrote in an email.

Hillier, a spokesman for the Department of National Defence in Halifax, said specific details of the investigation won’t be released because they are protected by the Privacy Act.

Police closed the investigation and sent the results to the member’s unit on March 31, a departmental spokeswoman in Ottawa said.

The investigation began in October 2014 when Parsons’ father, Glen Canning, filed a report alleging that someone using a DND computer had tried to post inappropriate comments about his daughter to his website.

During the investigation, military police in Halifax arrested and questioned a member of the military who is the father of one of the boys convicted of child pornography in Parsons’ case, court documents show.

The boy pleaded guilty to sharing a photo of a 15-year-old Parsons vomiting during a sexual act at a party in 2011. He cannot — along with his family — be identified because he was a youth at the time of the charges.

Parsons died of suicide in 2013 after months of torment and bullying, her parents say.

In February, the Ottawa Citizen reported that someone using an Internet Protocol (IP) address registered to DND had made numerous edits to a Wikipedia page titled “Suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons.”

The changes included adding the word “attempt” after each mention of the word “suicide” and altering the meaning of a direct quote from Canning about the circumstances surrounding his daughter’s death.

At the time, DND said it was launching an internal investigation into the “inappropriate” Wikipedia edits.