OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino will not have to testify in a disciplinary case against two officers. (Canadian Press)

Charges against two senior Ontario police officers have been dropped, effectively ending a disciplinary process that threatened to tarnish the reputation of the head of the province's police force.

The OPP withdrew misconduct charges against Supt. Ken MacDonald and Insp. Alison Jevons on Wednesday when the hearing resumed at provincial police force's headquarters in Orillia. MacDonald used to head the unit that probes internal corruption and Jevons was a senior investigator in the unit.

They were both charged with neglect of duty and deceit. But the two officers claimed they were victims of a witch hunt inside the Ontario Provincial Police force being orchestrated by OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino and the head of the OPP union, the Ontario Provincial Police Association.

"This matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the prosecution and the subject officers outside the discipline process," said OPP prosecutor Brian Gover on Wednesday.

Dropping charges in 'best interest'

MacDonald and Jevons did not comment after the hearing, but their lawyer, Julian Falconer, said they are "relieved to get on with their careers."

The decision also comes more than a year after Fantino began a series of legal moves aimed at having Justice Leonard Montgomery removed from the case because of remarks he made during the proceedings.

The motion was rejected by a divisional court and upheld last month by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On Wednesday, when the hearing was scheduled to resume, the charges against the two officers were dropped — and that means Fantino will not have to return to the witness box.

"This [the decision to drop the charges] is in the best interest of the subject officers and certainly in the best interest of the administration of justice," Montgomery said.

The disciplinary case centred on an investigation that looked into why OPP supervisors in eastern Ontario looked the other way when a local officer allegedly took a baseball bat to his wife's car. When MacDonald and Jevons concluded there was misconduct, the police union filed a complaint claiming major problems with the whole investigation.

Fantino, who was new to the job as commissioner, ordered a review of the findings. He later agreed with the union and charged the two senior officers with neglect of duty and deceit for their handling of the investigation.

MacDonald and Jevons, however, fought back and in the process made their own allegations. Part of their evidence was an email in which the union said it wanted to "Take down MacDonald."

MacDonald and Jevons also claim Fantino bowed to union pressure.

'Those allegations are not true': Fantino

Days before charging MacDonald, another senior officer testified Fantino said, "Are you going to execute the disloyal one, or am I?" The senior officer made notes of the comments.

The defence claimed that when Fantino learned those notes were about to become evidence, the officer was told he was being transferred to North Bay.

Lawyers for the two accused officers said that amounted to witness tampering.

During his testimony Fantino called the allegations "hysterical nonsense" and denied he was bowing to pressure from the OPP union.

Fantino also denied any personal vendetta against MacDonald and Jevons.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon to the news media, Fantino denied all of the accusations, saying "those allegations are not true."