D-057 - Adjudication Board Decision
The member in this matter was the subject of two allegations of disgraceful conduct; one allegation was that he had solicited the services of a prostitute who was actually an undercover municipal police officer and the other involved the member's having acted unprofessionally and inappropriately to a municipal police officer on another occasion. The member was convicted in criminal court of soliciting the services of a prostitute. He admitted the allegations before the Adjudication Board and was ordered to resign. The member appealed this sanction.
In appealing the sanction, the member argued that there were mitigating factors that had either been underestimated or not considered by the Board. Firstly, he argued that his education (the member had a Bachelor of Arts degree and was in law school at the time of the hearing) could be of value to the RCMP and the Board had failed to consider this fact. Secondly, the member submitted that the Board had failed to state its impression of the mitigating value of his apology to the Board. Thirdly, the member argued that the Board had failed to consider the financial hardship he had suffered while suspended without pay. The Committee examined these factors and found no error in the Board's appreciation of them.
Aggravating factors that the member argued were overemphasized in an erroneous manner by the Board included: the impact of the member's conduct on the prostitution problem in the area in which he lived, the notoriety that the member's criminal trial had attracted and the member's prior disciplinary record. The Committee determined that the prostitution problem in the area had not been the basis of the Board's decision on sanction. The notoriety of the case was a proper, though not a crucial consideration for the Board, and there was no error made in the Board's consideration of this factor. The member's prior disciplinary record, which included formal and informal discipline, had been properly considered by the Board. The Committee did find that the Board had erred when it accepted that the member's credibility had come into question as a result of the criminal conviction. This determination was in error because the Board had indicated at the hearing that it would not consider the reasons for decision of the criminal trial judge, and then did so. However, the Committee found that the error was not determinative of the outcome of the appeal; the Committee found that the Board's conclusion on sanction would have been the same without the erroneous consideration.
The member pointed to certain words used by the Board in its decision and argued that they indicated that the Board had used an improper approach and had overstepped its jurisdiction. The Committee found that there was no error in the Board's approach to discipline and that there had been nothing improper in the Board's decision when read in its entirety.
The member argued that the RCMP Act required an individual sanction to be imposed for each established contravention of the Code of Conduct; he also argued that his two contraventions represented isolated incidents, neither of which should have given rise to a sanction of an order to resign. The Committee found that there was nothing in the wording of the relevant provision of the RCMP Act which required an individual sanction for each contravention, and that it was open to an adjudication board to sanction two or more established contraventions with a single sanction, where appropriate. In this case, the Committee found that it had been reasonable for the Board to consider the member's conduct cumulatively and to impose a single sanction for both contraventions. The sanction imposed had been reasonable, in light of all of the circumstances of the matter and the conduct at issue. On June 30, 1998, the Committee recommended that the appeal be denied.
On September 10, 1998, the Commissioner agreed with the Committee's Findings and Recommendation. He denied the appeal and confirmed the order to resign.