Quinte Consolidated Courthouse in Belleville. (Photo: Nicole Kleinsteuber / Quinte News)
A local judge has criticized the Quinte West OPP detachment for failing to follow the law around police strip searches as Ontario’s police watchdog conducts an ongoing review of the controversial practice.
Court documents obtained by Quinte News show Justice Madame Elaine Deluzio stayed impaired driving charges on June 9 against Jillian Judson who was told to remove her underwire bra, at the police station in May 2016 when there were no reasonable grounds to do so.
On May 12, 2016, Judson was subjected to a roadside pat down search and during a more thorough secondary pat down search at the detachment Judson was asked to remove her bra, before she was placed in a holding cell. The crown attorney in the case conceded that the removal of Judson’s bra was an illegal strip search that violated her Section 8 rights. Quinte West detachment OPP Officer Amanda MacFadden testified that it is her practice to ask female inmates to remove their underwire bras. She said that she tells female inmates that their bras are removed “for their safety and ours.” She said she has personally found objects in women’s underwire bras, such as bear mace, and crack cocaine.
During Judge Deluzio’s ruling she said she was not only concerned with what happened to Judson but also with the officers involved who testified they would continue to request female detainees to remove their bras out of concern for “police safety.”
“The indifference expressed by both officers (Amanda) MacFadden and (Janet) Allaire to their obligation as police officers to abide by the legal constraints surrounding strip searches is very concerning,” Deluzio wrote in her ruling. “And the apparent willingness of both officers and possibly other police officers at Quinte West OPP detachment, to continue with a practice of removing at least every underwire bra worn by female detainees, knowing that this practice, when implemented automatically and without exception towards every female detainee is illegal, is an egregious abuse of police power.”
In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada outlawed the use of routine police strip searches, saying the dehumanizing procedure can be carried out only with a solid and specific reason, such as when looking for weapons or evidence related to the arrest. The Office of the Independent Police Review Director Gerry McNeilly launched a review last July stating his agency continuously receives complaints of people being improperly and illegally searched.
The Ontario Provincial Police is currently reviewing Deluzio’s ruling. While she couldn’t speak directly to this case, North and East region OPP Sgt. Chrystal Jones explained they will continue to monitor the OIPRD findings on how to move forward with searches in the future.
Both Officer McFadden and Officer Allaire testified that they just became aware the removal of a female detainee’s bra, is in fact a strip search. Yet both officers testified that they have continued with this practice and their intention is to continue to do so, out of concern for “police safety”.
“They have not received any training or directive from their superiors to remedy this routine police misconduct,” wrote Deluzio. “It seems that police officers at the Quinte West OPP detachment continue to do this routinely and without factual foundation, purporting to address a vaguely conceptualized notion of “prisoner and police safety”, at the expense of the privacy and dignity of female detainees.”
