Witness angry charges stayed against Toronto officers

Last Updated: Friday, February 8, 2008 | 8:19 AM ET

CBC News

A man who claims he was beaten and robbed by Toronto police officers 10 years ago is speaking out after the case against them collapsed in court last week.

Christopher Quigley's allegations of assault and theft led to a massive probe of Toronto police corruption, but last week Judge Ian Nordheimer stayed the charges.

Nordheimer said the pace at which the charges made it to court was "glacial," and as a result the six former drug squad members may not face 30 counts of corruption stemming from an investigation dating back to 2004. The Crown still has three weeks to appeal.

The investigation started after more than 200 drug cases were dropped by provincial prosecutors. A number of people accused in those cases have filed civil lawsuits, alleging they had been beaten and robbed by drug squad officers.

Now, Quigley says, he's angry because he was eager to testify against the officers. 

Quigley said he still lives with pain from the beating he suffered nearly 10 years ago. He claims it happened when he was arrested on drug charges and taken into a holding cell at 53 Division near Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue West.
 
"They thought I was holding back information from them. They repeatedly beat me. And at one point, into unconsciousness," he said.

"[They] punched me in the face, in the stomach, all over my body. I thought I was going to die. I was at that point."

Quigley said it was members of the city's drug squad who abused and tortured him. An internal police report backs up Quigley's story.

The report says supervisors allowed the incident to go undetected.
 
Quigley also claims police stole thousands of dollars from a safety deposit box belonging to his mother.

The police officers, all former members of the Toronto drug squad, faced more than 30 charges, including extortion, theft, assault, perjury and obstruction of justice.

An internal investigation by a 25-member special task force headed by then Chief Supt. John Neily of the RCMP and was assigned to look into corruption allegations against the officers in the now defunct Central Field Command drug squad Team 3.

Neily referred a total of 218 charges against 12 officers to the Crown law office, but prosecutors recommended charging only six officers with 22 counts because only those had a "reasonable prospect of conviction."

The six officers all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Crown reluctant to proceed, says witness

For 10 years, Quigley says, he was hoping to see justice done and the officers punished.

But Quigley says it became clear as the process dragged on over the years that the Crown wasn't prepared to go to trial.

Quigley feels the system has failed him and says the provincial attorney general's office never wanted to see this go to trial, because it didn't want to see the police dragged through the mud.

"We felt that the Crown attorney had no interest in seeing this thing go to trial. He never returned our phone calls. There was a veil of secrecy over this whole thing from its inception," he told CBC News.

"All of us felt that they did not have the desire or the appetite to take this to trial.  And this proves exactly that."

Now he's hoping the provincial government will call a public inquiry.
 
He feels that's the last chance to have his case, and others like his, heard in public.

Quigley said he is considering a civil suit.