Scanned, recopied or Internet copy, if there are errors, please e-mail me with corrections: Opening comments: More at the end. The Record (KITCHENER) - Nov. 14, 2008 - By Brian Caldwell, Record staff - bcaldwell@therecord.com Man paid $5,000 for unlawful detention Local police have paid $5,000 in damages to a Kitchener man held in custody for 30 hours on a charge that was later dropped in court. The recent settlement was reached just before a claim by Patrick Howarth, 23, was scheduled to go to trial in small claims court. Howarth alleged he was improperly arrested in 2004, then subjected to an unlawful strip search and excessive force during the attempted removal of a face piercing with wire-cutters. Waterloo Regional Police denied all allegations of abuse or mistreatment. But they acknowledged in the out-of-court settlement that Howarth wasn't brought before a justice of the peace within 24 hours, as required by law. Charged with breaching an order to stay out of downtown, Howarth was kept in custody from the morning of one day until the afternoon of the next, when he was released on bail after 30 hours. "We made a mistake," Supt. Bryan Larkin said. "We were acting in good faith and we simply were not efficient and effective. We regret that and we certainly accept responsibility for it." He said police have since improved training and procedures to help ensure suspects in custody are taken to court within the required 24-hour period. "It's always a learning opportunity and we take these things seriously," Larkin said. It's the third time since 2006 that allegations of police wrongdoing in small claims court have been successful or partly successful. All three cases involved organizers or members of The Spot, a former youth group in downtown Kitchener that had a series of run-ins with police during protests over issues such as homelessness and harassment. Last month, police had to pay $750 to Jason Lamka of Kitchener, who said he was unlawfully arrested and strip-searched for public drunkenness. The court rejected the strip-search allegation but agreed Lamka, 25, had been improperly arrested. Before that, social activist Davin Charney reached a $9,000 settlement with police over a long list of incidents, including an arrest that resulted in his spending eight days in a provincial jail. Now a lawyer, he represented Howarth and is working on several other cases against police in small claims court, where the maximum possible award is $10,000. "If they're admitting that they did something wrong, that's great," Charney said. "That's what we were asserting from the start. "Now we've done a number of these small claims and been successful on them. We hope to continue the momentum that has been generated with each victory." Howarth was arrested walking on Charles Street for allegedly breaching an undertaking to stay out of a specific area of the downtown. The charge against him was withdrawn in court by a Crown prosecutor less than three months later. "I think he was targeted because of his involvement with The Spot," Charney said. Larkin said the $5,000 payment was covered by a self-insurance pool for Waterloo Region municipalities. Home Page - Main Table of Contents - Back up a page - Back to Top [COMMENTS BY DON B. - ] |
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