Police delays nearly sabotaged case

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/09/2009 (5931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Police Service accepted full responsibility Thursday for long delays in the investigation against Dr. Ross Brown that almost sabotaged the case against the former president of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

"We failed to deliver on our own timeline on a couple of occasions and that did put the case in jeopardy," Insp. Bill Fogg said. "It’s simply a matter of a bunch of well-intentioned people who are tying to take on a lot of work and they were unable to meet their own expectations that they… set for the Crown and the courts."

Fogg said investigators were faced with sifting through a mountain of data to prove the charges against Brown and became overwhelmed despite their best efforts. The investigators had to put the Brown file aside several times when new cases surfaced.

"If we have a case where we believe that we have live victims in a luring kind of a situation… that supersedes the need to be going through archived files that we can come back to," Fogg said.

Brown, 72, was sentenced to 45 days in jail and three years probation Wednesday after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. The maximum jail time Brown faced was 90 days under a summary conviction. However the Crown said it would have proceeded by indictment — allowing for a longer sentence — if the delay had not forced prosecutors into a plea bargain.

Brown admitted to possessing almost 5,000 pornographic photos involving children as young as two engaged in explicit sex acts, including bondage and bestiality.

The judge was told at Brown’s sentencing that he might have walked free had the prosecutor not agreed to a 45-day jail sentence and three years of pro–bation. The prosecutor said Brown likely had a strong argument that his Charter rights had been violated by a nearly three-year delay in police disclosing evidence to his lawyer Jeff Gindin.

Brown was arrested in 2006 by the joint Winnipeg police-RCMP integrated child exploitation unit, which was created in 2001. The unit disbanded in the spring of 2007, with city police assuming responsibility for the Brown case.

Fogg said despite the delay, the case was still successful.

"It was a very important moral victory for these crimes and the unknown kids who were victimized in these crimes," Fogg said. "People from any social strata could in fact end up being guilty of these things."

Fogg added police have taken steps to prevent similar delays by acquiring better software and adding more computer technicians to complex cases.

"There’s never going to be an end to the cases," Fogg said "This is a multibillion-dollar industry that’s driven at the expense of young children who are being sexually abused to fill the fantasies of people who collect this material. That’s never going to go away."

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

Doctor’s hall

of fame status

in jeopardy

 

THE board of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will discuss at its next meeting whether former team president Dr. Ross Brown should be removed from the team’s hall of fame following his incarceration for possession of child pornography, a team spokesman said Thursday.

Team spokesman Darren Cameron said the board meeting has not been scheduled.

Brown would be the first person removed because of a criminal conviction since the hall of fame was created in 1984 to recognize players, coaches, executives and volunteers.

Brown was inducted as a builder into the team’s hall of fame in June 2006.

Brown joined the Bombers in 1982 and served as club president in 1988 and 1989. Brown was known for promoting the team in the corporate community and was a member of the 1991 Grey Cup planning committee. In 1997 he was appointed to the club’s honourary council.

The ultrasound specialist was working at the St. Boniface General Hospital at the time of his arrest. He resigned several weeks later.