'I absolutely felt threatened': Former VPD exec speaks out alleging workplace toxicity and complicity

She spent nearly 20 years working for the Vancouver Police Department, and now the woman at the centre of a lawsuit is speaking publicly about the threatening environment she claims to have experienced, and the alleged inaction of management.

Sharmini Dee, who went by Sharm Thiagarajah for much of her career, sat down with CTV News for a one-on-one interview where she provided more detail and fresh allegations, in addition to what was spelled out in the 16-page notice of civil claim filed by her lawyers on Friday.

"Silence always helps the tormentor, never the tormented, and the easiest thing would’ve been to just leave," said Dee, whose hands visibly trembled at times while she described her experience in the upper echelons of the Vancouver Police Department.

"I hope the place is investigated, because it’s absolutely corrupt, internally. That’s one of the things that I’ve seen and when you see something, you say something."

Dee described moving up the ranks of the public affairs department and being tapped by the chief constable to take on the director role. She eventually agreed despite some misgivings, and says she immediately encountered hostility from one of her subordinates, Sgt. Steve Addison, upon being named to the role.

She alleges behaviour ranging from daily micro-aggressions including eye-rolling and rude comments, to questioning her qualifications and "retaliatory abuse," with a particularly terrifying physical encounter that purportedly took place after she asked to speak with him privately on an occasion where he undermined her authority in front of the rest of the department.

"I asked him, 'Is it difficult for you to report to a female director?' and it got really bad. He slammed his book where I was sitting and he came right into my face and said, ‘The next time I speak with you I want representation,’ and then he got up and he left my office," she recalled. "I absolutely felt threatened, and I’m not easily threatened. I looked to see if his gun was in his holster, that’s kind of where my brain went."

The Vancouver Police Department is not commenting, citing the court case and private personnel considerations.

A pattern of behaviour?

Dee is the third woman in a row to hold the position of Public Affairs Director with the VPD, which is typically a civilian-held position reporting directly to the chief.

She claims each of them has faced repeated harassment and bullying from Addison, who's been one of two media relations officers and spokespeople for the last several years, and a familiar face to Lower Mainland news consumers.

CTV News has reached out to him directly to address the allegations but he has not yet responded.

As for the organization's leader, Dee says her complaints to Chief Const. Adam Palmer were downplayed.

"I said, 'I don’t feel safe; there are women on the team who don’t feel safe,' and he asked me to just be patient and wait for the investigation and not do anything rash," said Dee, who went on a medical leave in September after exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder while on the job, where she says she was directed to remain Addison's supervisor despite asking for a demotion to her old job.

"It’s not just one person, it’s the leadership, it’s the silence, how they kept quiet when I asked over and over," she emphasized. "I asked, when I left, 'Please protect my team,' and nothing’s been done."

Review underway by the OPCC

When Dee filed a formal complaint, she says the human resources department repeatedly advised her she could withdraw the paperwork, and CTV News has learned that the force essentially investigated itself in the matter.

While Dee has confirmed she was interviewed by an outside law firm retained to investigate the allegations, the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner revealed that "a senior VPD officer who acted as the 'internal discipline authority'" concluded the allegations were "unfounded" after the force decided to handle the matter internally. 

The practice of self-investigation of police forces has been highly controversial in the past, and the OPCC's deputy commissioner was clear that the office has an open review in the case, a standard practice in "all internal investigations to determine whether there are any outstanding public trust matters requiring a further investigation."