B.C. police discipline ruling voided because officer overseeing investigation retired

A Vancouver Police Department patch is seen in Ottawa on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby Spencer Colby

A disciplinary decision against a former Vancouver police sergeant, who was found to have improperly shared degrading messages about a colleague who was sexually assaulted, has been voided after authorities realized the senior officer who oversaw the investigation retired a week before it was issued.

The disciplinary decision must now be reissued, dragging out the victim's pursuit of justice over how she was treated by colleagues in the wake of the 2019 attack.

She called the situation a "screw-up" by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which she said had failed its oversight mission.

Former New Westminster police chief Dave Jansen had been appointed by the office as the discipline authority in the investigation of former sergeant Narinder Dosanjh.

Jansen found Dosanjh committed "discreditable conduct" by sharing "disrespectful" commentary written by someone else about the 2021 court testimony by the woman, whose attacker was fellow Vancouver police officer Jagraj Roger Berar.

While Jansen's finding was issued on Oct. 11, about three weeks before Jansen's retirement on Oct. 31, his separate discipline decision that recommended a written reprimand and additional workplace training was not issued until Nov. 6.

The Canadian Press has obtained a copy of a letter from deputy police complaint commissioner Andrea Spindler dated Nov. 15 that said Jansen's retirement meant it did "not appear that he satisfied the definition of a 'discipline authority'" under the Police Act.

"As a result, I am of the opinion that Former Chief Constable Jansen had no authority to issue his … decision, and that the decision is a nullity having no legal effect," Spindler's letter says.

Spindler's letter says there were "good reasons" to extend a deadline to issue a discipline decision "properly."

The letter says the extension now expires on Dec. 13.

The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner said in a statement in response to questions about the case that "it would be inaccurate to state that the OPCC nullified any decision."

"In light of the retirement, our office issued an extension in order for the discipline decision to be issued in accordance with the requirements of the Police Act," it said, adding that it would make no further comment on the case.

Berar was convicted of sexual assault in the originating case and sentenced to a year in jail in 2021.

The name of the victim, who was also the complainant in the disciplinary case against Dosanjh, is covered by a publication ban.

She said in an interview that Spindler's letter was a "sad display" of how the commissioner's office runs.

"The oversight is not this boisterous oversight that the public thinks it is," she said.

She also said she didn't believe the punishment Jansen originally handed down to Dosanjh was sufficient, and she was now uncertain whether he would be disciplined at all.

"They have failed as the oversight body for policing. This is their screw-up," she said.

"You would think the people that are enforcing the Police Act rules would have recognized that (Jansen) retired in the middle of all this and now they're providing their own extension for their own mistake in order to figure out what to do, but they don't even have the ability to tell me what it is they're going to do."

Dosanjh was found by Jansen to have improperly shared text messages detailing a "play-by-play" account of court testimony given by the officer who was sexually assaulted by Berar in 2019.

The messages that were originally shared in an unofficial police group chat called the woman a "bad drunk" and said there was "no way" Berar would be convicted.

The woman, who has left the Vancouver Police Department but still works in policing, made a complaint to the commissioner after learning about the texts from a colleague.

Although her original complaint against a senior Vancouver police officer who she and others believed wrote the texts in the courtroom were not substantiated, Dosanjh was found to have committed discreditable conduct by sharing them.

Dosanjh told the officer investigating the complaint that he was a "fall guy," and he didn't think the messages were "degrading, humiliating or derogatory."

"I disagree," Jansen wrote in his decision, adding that the running commentary appeared supportive of Berar and reflected "all-too-common myths" about women who make sexual assault allegations.

Jansen found that Dosanjh was a senior officer and aware of the "vulnerability of victims of sexual crimes and of the myths that surround sexual assault victims."

The complainant, along with several other female former municipal police officers, is one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against more than a dozen municipal police forces in British Columbia.

The lawsuit alleges pervasive harassment, bullying and discrimination, including misogynistic comments, unwanted touching and sexual assault.

The case is in court in Vancouver this week as lawyers for the former officers, the police forces and their respective cities try to map out how the case should proceed since the class of female officers has not been certified.

Justice Bruce Elwood said in court on Monday that it "might be years from now" before the court deals with certifying the case.