Female Mountie docked pay over sexual misconduct
An RCMP officer has been docked pay after it was found that she made inappropriate sexual comments toward a male colleague.
Const. Valerie Little will forfeit 20 days of pay, 10 days of annual leave, her promotion eligibility for two years, and was ordered to work under close supervision for a year, according to a disciplinary hearing decision posted recently.
The sexual misconduct involved two incidents that took place in late 2009 and in 2010 while both officers were working at the Vernon detachment. Both incidents are contrary to the RCMP’s Code of Conduct.
The first incident took place sometime in November 2009 while Little and the other officer, identified in documents only as A.F., were in a video room watching a training interview of a sex offence suspect who was being interrogated.
“At one point in the interview, when the male suspect was discussing his own sexual preferences, (Little) leaned over to Constable A.F. and placed (her) right hand on his left thigh and quietly whispered in his ear words to the effect of: ‘I like to take it from behind,’” read the report.
In a second incident in February 2010, Little ran into A.F. in a hallway at the detachment, around the time the detachment had entered a team, which included A.F., in a broomball tournament. It was known that the sport could get rough and that players needed to wear a jockstrap and cup.
“At one point, only (Little) and Constable A.F. remained in the detachment hallway. (Little) approached Constable A.F. while he was leaning up against a wall. (Little) proceeded to grab the penis of Constable A.F. and squeezed his penis with (her) fingers while stating: ‘I see you’re not wearing a cup,’” read the report written by Josée Thibault.
Following the two incidents, A.F. sought support from a retired senior member of the RCMP, but the retired female member “did not take his complaint as a male victim of sexual assault seriously as she ‘chuckled’ when informed.”
A.F. later left the Vernon detachment in March 2011 and did not report the incidents officially until the spring of 2017 when he ran into Little in Nanaimo, where he was working and where she informed him she would be transferring. Little denied both incidents. In the end, the conduct board ruled against Little, noting that it was more likely that the events occurred than they did not.
“Members of the RCMP are held to a higher standard of behaviour than the general public, both onand off-duty,” the report notes.
“I find that a reasonable person in society, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances, including the realities of policing in general and the RCMP in particular, would view Constable Little’s actions as likely to bring discredit to the force.”