Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada approved & licensed known pedophile to be children’s lawyer – with predictable results.
“Coon was given a licence to practice law in Ontario despite a history that included a prior criminal conviction for sexually assaulting a child.
According to the documents, Coon revealed in 2004 to the Law Society that he had been convicted of sexually assaulting a friend’s 12-year-old daughter in 1991.
… But the Law Society determined there was insufficient evidence to justify what is known as a “good character” hearing after Coon produced a “favourable” report from a psychologist who had treated him from 1990 to 1994…” (National Post)
Ontario Lawyer John David Coon is on the run. Arrest warrant issued.
Accused of sexually assaulting 4-year old girl while acting in his professional capacity as an Ontario lawyer.
Thought to be hiding in Thailand or Cambodia.
by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police
Far be it that I, or any ordinary Canadian, should attempt to define professional standards for Ontario’s Law Society of Upper Canada.
After all, the Law Society has arranged it so that lawyers are unaccountable to anyone but their fellow members of the Club. Ontario lawyers are only regulated and judged by the same people they went to law school with, worked with and attended office and family functions with.
These same members of the Club decided that a convicted pedophile met the ‘good character’ standards to be licensed as a lawyer in Ontario. Not to mention that the pedophile’s area of practice was ‘Child Protection Law’.
Well, if that’s the standard, who are we ordinary Canadians to disagree?
With the Club.
“Can you just imagine the outcry if the Toronto Police had knowingly hired a convicted pedophile to be a police officer dealing with children?”
If this was some kind of anomaly by the Law Society of Upper Canada, people could understand, but the truth is that Ontario’s legal profession has, time and time again, shown that it is incapable of policing itself and of putting the public trust first and foremost.
The Toronto Star’s Broken Trust series reveals how the Law Society of Upper Canada covered up and white-washed hundreds of cases where Ontario lawyers committed criminal acts against their clients.
In my own case, Thomas G. Conway and Robert Lapper Q.C., the Treasurer and CEO of the Law Society of Upper Canada, were aware of solid evidence that LSUC lawyers Gerald Ranking and Lorne S. Silver lied to the courts and fabricated evidence. The Law Society Treasurer and CEO were also aware of solid forensic evidence that personnel from the Miller Thompson LLP law firm in Toronto used the internet to anonymously threaten witnesses in Florida, Ontario and Barbados. (My letters to Conway and Lapper are here: pdf 469k LSUC download)
Conway and Lapper whitewashed and covered up. No evidence was seized from Miller Thomson LLP’s computer network. No investigation was even started.
This happens because the Ontario legal profession and the Law Society of Upper Canada are more concerned with managing image rather than ensuring lawyers adhere to the standards that used to be the foundation of the legal profession: Integrity, Accountabilty and the Rule of Law.
Ordinary Canadians are probably unsurprised at all of the above, because we have come to expect such low standards from our legal profession. Canadians and the legal profession itself should expect and demand much higher standards from lawyers and the Law Society of Upper Canada.