A recent court ruling in Ottawa paves the way for a potentially explosive case involving a woman police officer who blew the whistle on alleged bullying, harassment, corruption, abuse of power and coverup at an Ontario police force that remains under investigation.Sgt. Nicole Whiteway's lawsuit includes allegeations of unlawful conduct, targeted malice and retaliation involving some of Durham’s highest-ranking police officers, many of whom are no longer with the force.
"Nicole's case, I believe, is going to open the door for more people to access justice through the court system," said Kelly Donovan, a former Waterloo Regional Police Service constable who now researches and makes recommendations about how forces in Canada could better handle internal investigations.
Kirk Boggs, a partner with Lerners LLP in Toronto, represents all the Durham police defendants in the case. He asked CBC not to contact any of the current or former officers identified in the claim. "He would frequently make comments such as, 'You need to decide whether you're a mom or a cop,'" according to a legal factum produced by Whiteway's lawyers and submitted to a disciplinary tribunal in March 2019.
A short time later, the officer told her Sanderson was "in with the doctor and that everything was being addressed," according to court documents. A provincial oversight body took on the task of investigating Durham police, but several years on it remains at an impasse due to the force 'repeatedly refusing to cooperate and provide information,' according to Tribunals Ontario. Sanderson later admitted to Whiteway that her colleagues hadn't actually taken him into the hospital, but had instead driven him to the hospital's parking garage, Whiteway claims in court filings.
As Sanderson continued to terrorize his family, he told Whiteway repeatedly that the Durham police were on his side and would never intervene. She and her children "had no choice but to submit to Sanderson's brutal authority," states her claim. When she finished describing what had happened over the previous months, the investigator said it was "one of the worst cases of domestic abuse that he had investigated," notes the legal factum.Fourteen months later, on Jan. 29, 2019, Sanderson made a deal with the Crown and pleaded guilty to eight counts including multiple assaults, assaults with a weapon and uttering death threats, according to the Oshawa courthouse.