Tag: Police Misconduct

Toronto ex-cop Donald Best served entire prison sentence in “brutal” solitary confinement

Solitary Confinement prison cell

Solitary Confinement prison cell: What you see is larger, but very similar to the spartan reality of Donald Best’s cell.

A new editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal declaring solitary confinement as “cruel and unusual punishment” is no surprise to former Toronto Police Sergeant (and former prisoner) Donald Best, who describes his time in solitary confinement as “brutal”.

The Canadian Medical Association editorial says:

“Is this acceptable practice or is this torture?

Solitary confinement, defined as physical isolation for 22 to 24 hours per day and termed “administrative segregation” in federal prisons, has substantial health effects. These effects may develop within a few days and increase the longer segregation lasts.

Anxiety, depression and anger commonly occur. Isolated prisoners have difficulty separating reality from their own thoughts, which may lead to confused thought processes, perceptual distortions, paranoia and psychosis.

In addition to the worsening of pre-existing medical conditions, offenders may experience physical effects, such as lethargy, insomnia, palpitations and anorexia.”

From the Canadian Medical Association Journal editorial, November 17, 2014: Cruel and usual punishment: solitary confinement in Canadian prisons  (website article)

Alternative: Download the CMAJ editorial as a PDF 74kb

National Post: Solitary confinement is ‘cruel and usual punishment’

Herald: Prison suicide report blasts Corrections Canada

Mr. Best does not easily speak of his time in ‘the hole’. He says that he witnessed terrible events in the ‘Administrative Segregation Unit’ as solitary is euphemistically named by prison authorities. Best saw things he had never before seen or even imagined; despite his 35+ years in public and private law enforcement and as a deep-cover investigator against organized crime. He saw prisoners eating their own faeces and worse.

The Canadian Medical Association editorial says that solitary confinement “has substantial health effects” and worsens pre-existing medical conditions. Best knows this to be true from firsthand experience.    Read more

(Legally Made) Secret Recording: Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant Jim Van Allen retired in 2010, not 2008. The lie that put an innocent man in jail.

Former Toronto police sergeant Donald Best alleges in his recently filed civil lawsuit that the OPP Professional Standards Unit concealed their fellow officer’s crimes and in February of 2013 falsely told Best that Detective Sergeant Jim Van Allen had resigned from the OPP in 2008.

In fact, Detective Sergeant Van Allen did not resign from the Ontario Provincial Police until October of 2010, a full year after he had illegally worked as an unlicensed private investigator against the plaintiff, Donald Best.

According to Best’s lawsuit, the above (legally made*) secret recording of a December 30, 2013 telephone call with retired OPP Detective Sergeant Jim Van Allen confirms that Van Allen was a serving police officer in charge of the Ontario Provincial Police elite Criminal Profiling Unit when in October 2009 he illegally investigated Donald Best ‘on the side’ to benefit one side of a civil lawsuit in Ontario, Canada.

Van Allen swore a deceptive and false affidavit in October 2009 that was used to convict and sentence the Plaintiff Donald Best to 3 months in jail. Conspicuously absent in the affidavit is the fact that Van Allen was, at the time, a serving OPP Detective Sergeant, who was being paid ‘on the side’ to illegally work as an unlicensed private investigator for a major Toronto law firm.

The Plaintiff, Donald Best, alleges that Mr. Van Allen’s fellow police officers in the OPP’s Professional Standards Unit covered up Van Allen’s crimes even though it meant an innocent man would go to jail.

Mr. Best’s Statement of Claim states:     Read more

Civil lawsuit alleges Canadian police expertise, information and resources illegally sold to major law firms

In Canada it is illegal for police officers to work as investigators for private interests.

The Criminal Code, Ontario Police Services Act, Ontario Private Security and Investigative Services Act and other laws prohibit police officers from working as private investigators. It is also illegal to hire a police officer as a private investigator.

Those laws, however, didn’t stop one senior Ontario Provincial Police officer from illegally working as an unlicensed private investigator ‘on the side’, nor did the laws stop a major Canadian law firm from illegally hiring him.

And those same laws didn’t stop other senior police officers from covering up their fellow officer’s crimes; even though their cover-up would send an innocent man to jail. This according to a recently filed civil lawsuit by a former police officer in Ontario, Canada.

Former OPP Detective Sergeant, criminal profiler Jim Van Allen (public domain photo)

Former OPP Detective & criminal profiler Jim Van Allen (public domain photo)

“According to Best’s lawsuit, James (Jim) Arthur Van Allen was a Detective Sergeant in charge of the elite Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Criminal Profiling Unit when lawyer Gerald Ranking of Fasken, Martineau DuMoulin LLP illegally paid Van Allen $2,699.93 to illegally investigate Best and provide the results to Ranking and other lawyers and their clients”

How can we be confident that our justice system will not be undermined by rogue police personnel taking money ‘on the side’ to perform investigations for business interests or to support one side of civil disputes? If the police and lawyers don’t obey the laws, what is to prevent a divorcing husband or wife from paying a local police officer ‘on the side’ to gather information about their ex-spouse for a family law case?

What is to prevent your business rival from secretly hiring police officers to assist in a civil lawsuit against you?
 Read more

1 … 4 5 6