Sudbury police investigators made errors in 13 child sex cases: 'That's a devastating impact for their morale'

A CBC investigation has revealed that mistakes made by Greater Sudbury Police impacted 13 child pornography cases, including one where police errors led to the dropping of charges. 

The details only came to light after a ruling from the provincial Privacy Commissioner, some two years after CBC filed freedom of information requests.

"We're committed to rebuilding the public trust. We can't undo the things that were done, but we can make ourselves better moving forward," said Robert Norman, inspector of strategic operations.

"I know the organization is working toward building that transparency piece. We need to do that. We need to ensure that the public has confidence and trust in its police service and we do that through transparency."

In December 2021, a Sudbury court heard that the constitutional rights of a suspect had been violated by police, that it had happened in another child sex exploitation case the year before and that this was a "systemic" practice of Greater Sudbury Police.

At the time, CBC requested information on the extent of these errors and how many cases they affected and the police force would only say that the errors have been "addressed through both specific and general training," that the mistakes "did not meet the threshold for discipline" and that the department was "committed to moving forward."

A request was filed under Freedom of Information laws, which Greater Sudbury Police initially rejected, arguing the information would compromise law enforcement investigations, infringe on personal privacy, among other reasons.

After that decision was appealed to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the police released a training precis used by the Crown Attorney's office to educate officers on the constitution rights of suspects in October 2020, but most of it was blacked out.

In arguing against the release of the information, Sudbury police told the commissioner that a significant amount of detail about these cases had already been made public, claiming that the CBC "was provided with as much information as possible, which is always our practice, and it does not benefit us to withhold information to prevent negative publicity."

In its ruling, the commissioner agreed with the Greater Sudbury Police on some of the information it wanted to keep private, but also found that some records "would not constitute an unjustified invasion of personal privacy because the desirability of public scrutiny over the police outweighs the factors favouring privacy protection."

The documents detail how officers with the Internet Child Exploitation Unit routinely asked suspects for the passwords to their computers or other devices before they had a chance to consult with a lawyer, in violation fo their constitutional rights.

Greater Sudbury Police now say the errors in the 13 cases also included not bringing an accused person before a court as soon as possible and delays in disclosure to defence counsel.

"The upper brass of the Sudbury police service still don't seem to recognize that what was going on was wrong," said Michael Lacy, the defence lawyer who first raised concern about the investigative mistakes in court.

He says police officers do from "time to time" make errors "in good faith, ask questions that they ought not to have asked" but in his 25 years in law, he's never seen a police force with "such a systemic practice" as Greater Sudbury.