A former police officer jailed for refusing to testify at a public inquiry into child sex abuse allegations in eastern Ontario has been released from an Ottawa jail.

A website dedicated to the inquiry says Perry Dunlop was greeted by family and friends when he left jail on Sunday. He spent seven months in custody on civil and criminal contempt charges.

Dunlop was instrumental in sparking the judicial inquiry that examined how allegations of sexual abuse in the Cornwall-area were handled in the 1990s. But he defied court orders to testify, claiming he'd lost faith in the justice system. He was arrested at his home in Duncan, B.C., last February.

Dunlop began looking into an alleged pedophile ring that supposedly involved senior civic officials, clergymen and police officers on his own time in 1993.

A provincial police investigation led to 114 charges against 15 men, but it resulted in only one conviction.