VicPD removed as defendant in sexual abuse lawsuit against Esquimalt police officers

The Victoria Police Department has been removed as a defendant in a $5.3-million lawsuit brought by a woman who alleges she was sexually abused by four police officers when she was a teenage informant more than 30 years ago.

The plaintiff is a 49-year-old Jane Doe, who says she first became involved with the now defunct Esquimalt Police Department in 1989, when she was arrested for theft at 17 years old.

Doe alleges she became a police informant and was sexually harassed and abused by officers for the next several years.

The Victoria Police Department was initially named in the suit because it absorbed the Esquimalt Police Department into an amalgamated force in 2003. However, an amended claim filed last month removed the department as the lead defendant in the case, naming instead the Township of Esquimalt.

Four former Esquimalt police officers are also accused in the civil suit. Scott Malcolm Connors, Robert Bruce Cowick, Samuel Donald Devana and Kenneth Barrie Cockle are listed as co-defendants in the civil claim filed on Nov. 12 in B.C. Supreme Court.

None of the allegations have been proven or tested in court.

Only one of the named officers has formally responded to the suit.

In a response to the court filed on Jan. 21, Connors acknowledges that he was an Esquimalt police officer at the time of the alleged offences, and says he used a "variety of investigative techniques, one of which [was] engaging with informants."

Connors confirms that the plaintiff was an informant who helped the Esquimalt Police Department with property crime and drug trafficking investigations. He denies participating in or having any knowledge of the alleged abuses.