Former drug squad officers facing disciplinary charges actively tried to thwart an internal police probe into their activities, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair says in a confidential report.

Blair's report details how a special task force set up to probe allegations against the officers faced obstacles to its investigations, including tight-lipped witness officers and suspect officers refusing to hand over all their police memorandum books.

"It quickly became apparent that not only were the subject officers hostile to the special task force investigation, but a number of witness officers were also antagonistic towards it," Blair writes in the report.

The report was made public after an Ontario Divisional Court judge ruled late Monday against a request for a publication ban.

Officers want internal charges dropped

The report is part of an application filed by 12 officers facing internal Police Services Act charges laid last spring for alleged offences that took place between 1995 to 1999. Six of the officers also face criminal charges.

The accused officers have filed an application for judicial review of a decision to lay charges, arguing they should be dropped because charges were laid too long after the alleged offences.

Typically, internal police charges must be laid within six months of the offence taking place. But the police chief received approval, as required, from the Toronto Police Services Board to lay charges past the deadline.

Blair describes in the report how investigators initially suspected a conspiracy among officers involving fabrication of evidence, lying under oath, assault, theft, and even death threats.

Stash of police documents found in home

A special task force set up in 2002 to probe allegations seized thousands of police records and interviewed a number of officers.

But according to Blair's report, some of the accused officers refused to hand in all their police memorandum books. The report says only one officer turned over all his books.

The report also says some officers who were called as witnesses refused to answer questions.

In a 2002 search of the home of one suspect officer, Const. Ned Maodus, investigators allegedly found a stash of police reports, search warrants, Crown briefs and more than 50 of Maodus's memorandum books, the report says.

Informant says officer intimidated him

The report also states that one of the accused officers tried to intimidate a confidential informant who had formerly given tips to the drug squad.

In 2002, a former drug squad officer allegedly contacted one informant, saying the officer had "always been 'good' to the informer," the report said.

A day after the informant was interviewed by the task force, the informant said he found money outside his home that he said was left for him by the officer, the report says.

The informant also said he later received threatening phone calls.

Defence lawyers for the officers argue none of the report's claims have been tested in court or entered as evidence.