An alleged fraud cost a Southwestern Ontario municipality $1.1 million. A Vancouver suspect was detained for days in his nightclothes. A judge spotted red flags, calling out “a cavalier disregard” by police of the man’s rights.
Recommended Videos
The 72-year-old man wasn’t considered dangerous or “on the move,” and he was still wearing his pyjamas.
Even so, police officers removed him from his home and stuck him in a cell.
The man remained in the cell for the next day and a half, still in his pyjamas. For one of those days, the two officers in charge of the investigation went sightseeing.
Finally, those two officers got on a plane and took the man from Vancouver to Ontario. He was still in his pyjamas and handcuffed the entire flight.
Two nights in the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London and one confusing bail hearing later, the man was released.
And left to make his own way back to Vancouver.
Those were just a few of the questionable decisions two Strathroy-Caradoc police officers made that led to a fraud case that cost the municipality they serve $1.1 million being tossed out of court.
Working on shaky legal grounds, bowing to local politics, using confusing bail strategies – Superior Court Justice Martha Cook had her pick of reasons to take what she called the “drastic” measure of staying, or setting aside, the charges against the man, basically putting them on hold indefinitely.
“The conduct of authorities . . . demonstrates a pattern of police misconduct highly prejudicial to the integrity of the justice system,” she concluded.
Officers displayed “a cavalier disregard” for the rights of the accused and “a lack of understanding” of their duties, she ruled.
The case is the latest in a long list that shows many police in Ontario don’t receive proper training and oversight, and/or simply don’t care about some rules, says Ottawa defence lawyer Michael Spratt.
“It’s something that we have seen over and over and over again. It’s not specific to any police force or any specific jurisdiction, but it’s a systemic issue that runs across police forces,” he said.
“It baffles me that police receive mandatory training, on a yearly basis, about how to subdue, injure and kill people, but they don’t receive training about how to appropriately conduct investigations in a Charter (of Rights)-compliant manner. The inevitable result of that is that cases are thrown out of court.”
This case involved taxpayers’ money.
Strathroy-Caradoc police announced charges in November 2021 against a Vancouver man for a cybercrime targeting Strathroy-Caradoc, a municipality of 24,000 west of London.
“Funds were fraudulently obtained after being diverted away from a vendor’s account. Investigators tracked electronic records to identify the accused party,” a police spokesperson said.
Police didn’t name the vendor, the relationship to the municipality or how much money was taken.
Strathroy-Carodoc officials made no comment.
Strathroy officers travelled to British Columbia, where they worked with the Vancouver police financial crimes unit to search a Vancouver home and arrest Yiu Sun Wong, 72, police said at the time.
Wong was charged with fraud valued at more than $5,000 and fraudulent concealment.
Before Wong went to trial by jury, his lawyer Anil Kapoor applied for a stay of proceedings, alleging an abuse of process arising from multiple breaches by authorities of the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Kapoor serves on the board of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and is the co-author of a legal textbook, Detention, Arrest and the Right to Counsel.
In January and March of 2024, arguments about Kapoor’s application were heard in a voir dire hearing, a kind of trial within a trial held without the jury present in the courtroom. Voir dire hearings allow for arguments on legal matters.
Justice Cook heard those legal arguments and issued a written decision in the spring of 2024. The Crown did not appeal the ruling. No one issued a news release that the case had disappeared.
Wong could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Kapoor, has declined to speak about his client or the ruling, emailing The London Free Press that his firm’s policy is not to discuss cases in the media.
The decision by Justice Cook speaks for itself, Kapoor says.
The 14-page decision does say a lot, not only about legal mistakes but also about the alleged fraud and the investigation themselves.
In January 2021, a Strathroy-Caradoc municipal employee got an email from someone she believed represented Omega Contractors Inc., a construction company that did work for the municipality, according to the account in the judge’s ruling.
The email said Omega had changed banking information, supplied a void cheque and asked that funds owed to the company be sent to a new TD Canada Trust account.
Between Feb. 4 and March 26, 2021, Strathroy-Caradoc transferred slightly more than $1.1 million to the bank account, believing the money was for Omega, according to the details in the judge’s ruling.
By April, the municipality and Omega realized a fraud was taking place and the person who sent the email was not an Omega representative, and the company filed a complaint with Strathroy-Caradoc police.
The local police investigation led to a suspect in Vancouver who owned the bank account, Wong, and who was put under surveillance by Vancouver police.
The investigation led police and the Crown to allege that Wong opened the bank account, then transferred funds to an unknown third party by way of electronic fund transfers to several Bitcoin wallet addresses.
The Crown did not have evidence that Wong was involved in the creation of the fake emails or that he was aware of any fraudulent plan. Instead, the Crown alleged that Wong was “a money mule” who knew or ought to have known that the money deposited into his account did not belong to him.
Strathroy police knew the man was elderly, had no criminal record, had no known ties to organized crime and wasn’t considered dangerous, and that a search of his residence might turn up nothing, Justice Cook’s ruling noted.
Strathroy police “did not believe the Applicant to be ‘on the move’ and believed him to be just ‘a normal person who was living his life’ in Vancouver,” Cook said.
But lead investigator, Det. Const. Ben Wright, prepared a report on Oct. 21, 2021, with a plan to get a Canada-wide arrest warrant and travel to Vancouver to carry out a search warrant and arrest the suspect.
Police had two goals, Cook said in her ruling – gather the best evidence and show Strathroy-Caradoc that police were “pulling out all the stops to bring those responsible for the fraud to justice.”
The judge’s ruling details some of the emails Strathroy police Sgt. Jason Cartwright sent Vancouver police about the case.
“I just spoke to our Chief. Because of the optics of this investigation (It is our town that was defrauded the 1.2 mil), the Chief would like to send [Wright] out to be there for the operation,” the email quoted in the ruling said. “I know that you and I spoke about the possibility that executing the [search warrant] may be fruitless as [Wong] is likely a mule, however, our Chief would like us to carry out the task and at least attempt to gather the best evidence.”
Once arrested, Wong would be released under an undertaking – a signed agreement – to appear in court later in Ontario, police decided.
“The reason why the Crown is not requesting that Wong be brought back to Ontario at this time is because Wong has no criminal record,” Strathroy-Caradoc police emailed their counterparts in Vancouver.
An Ontario justice of the peace signed a warrant for Wong’s arrest, authorizing the release of the accused once he was issued the undertaking.
But that same day, Const. Wright wrote to Vancouver police saying his department was reconsidering releasing Wong despite the advice from the Crown to do so.
“We do not believe that is correct,” Wright wrote.
Over the next few days, apparent confusion arose among police in Strathroy-Caradoc about how the Ontario arrest warrant should be endorsed in court in B.C. and about what should happen to Wong after his arrest, Justice Cook noted in her ruling.
What was clear was that eventually both forces planned to have Wong not only arrested, but detained for a bail hearing in B.C. to get an order holding Wong for six days.
That six-day remand would then allow Ontario police to take Wong back to the province for a bail hearing – in effect, the exact opposite of what Strathroy officers first planned.
The two Strathroy officers, Wright and Cartwright, flew to Vancouver Nov. 17. Those two officers and eight Vancouver officers in four cars and two vans arrived at Wong’s residence about 8:30 a.m. that day.
The residence listed on the search warrant is a handsome two-storey brick house on a tree-lined boulevard of other handsome homes on Vancouver’s east side, where homes sell on average for about $2 million apiece.
Wong was arrested in a basement apartment and transferred at 8:45 a.m. – still wearing his pyjamas – to a Vancouver police station. He was allowed to speak to a lawyer an hour later and was then interviewed by Const. Wright.
After the interview, sometime just after noon, Wong was detained for his bail hearing. Wright and Cartwright were done work for the day.
Wong didn’t see a judge until that evening in Vancouver, where the Crown asked for the six-day remand. The judge asked Vancouver Crown counsel if Ontario police intended to arrest Wong. The Crown didn’t tell tell the judge Ontario police were already in Vancouver and had already arrested Wong.
That became a key sticking point later during the voir dire hearing.
Wong was then taken to a Vancouver detention centre. Still in his pyjamas.
The next day, Nov. 18, 2021, Strathroy police officers Wright and Cartwright took a day off. They went to Gastown for lunch and visited Granville Island, the court ruling noted.
Gastown, with its trendy food and shopping scene, and Granville Island, a waterside district, are popular tourism destinations in Vancouver.
“Once the six-day remand was in hand, neither DC Wright nor Sgt. Cartwright gave a moment’s thought to taking a day and a half off while the (accused) sat in the Vancouver detention centre, in his pyjamas,” Justice Cook noted.
The day after that, Nov. 19, 2021, Strathroy police picked up Wong and took a commercial flight to Toronto, and then to London.
Wong “was handcuffed throughout his transport. He was still in his pyjamas,” Cook observed in her ruling.
Wong and the officers arrived in London just before midnight and the accused was taken to Strathroy’s police cells overnight.
The next day, Nov. 20 and the third day since his arrest, Wong appeared in virtual bail court in London before Ontario justice of the peace Kelly Jackson.
Jackson had trouble figuring out what Strathroy-Caradoc police wanted to be done with Wong. In their bail report, Strathroy-Caradoc police officers indicated they opposed Wong getting bail because of a flight risk, but also recommended he be released with recommendations.
“Did I hear you correctly?” the justice of the peace asked. “Your service clicks off both ‘Bail Opposed’ and ‘Release?’ Is it the police’s recommendation just that Mr. Wong is – what was he, 72 years old – should be detained in jail?”
That’s common practice of the police department, to oppose bail but put in recommendations in case a judge disagrees, Const. Wright told Jackson at the hearing.
Jackson ordered a hearing about bail for Nov. 22. Wong spent two nights in the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre.
On Nov. 22 – after five days in detention – Wong was released with a surety pledge of $75,000 and a cash deposit of $9,000.
He had to find his own way back to B.C., Cook noted in her ruling.
At the voir dire hearings Cook presided over, Wong’s lawyer argued the police and Crown made several errors that added up to an abuse of process threatening the fairness of his client’s trial.
The Crown conceded there were procedural issues but not enough to breach the Charter rights or create an abuse of process that warranted a stay of the proceedings.
Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned and the right to liberty.
The Strathroy police officers were acting in good faith when they tried to sort out how to get Wong to appear in Ontario to answer the charge of fraud, Justice Cook said in her ruling.
But, she concluded, the arrest and detention raised “multiple, serious concerns” about Wong’s Charter rights.
Strathroy police didn’t take what should have been the obvious step of getting a proper warrant, called a Feeney warrant, to enter Wong’s house, despite weeks of planning, Cook said.
At the scene of the arrest, none of the nine officers from two police departments appeared to consider the need for that warrant, or notice they didn’t have one, before going into Wong’s home to arrest him, Cook said.
“It remains inexplicable in the circumstances of this carefully planned arrest,” she said.
Either Strathroy police didn’t know or care, Justice Cook said.
Still, that error wasn’t enough of a problem to stay the charges, she said.
But the detention after the arrest was, Cook concluded.
The first reason involves a bit of inside baseball for non-lawyers. The second seems more obvious.
First, the Criminal Code allows the courts to slap an extended period of remand on someone if they’ve been arrested without a warrant in another jurisdiction.
The justice in B.C. who granted the six-day remand for Wong was not told by the Crown that Wong had been arrested by Ontario police, Cook said.
If the justice in B.C. had known Wong had already been arrested, he wouldn’t have ordered the “extraordinary” six-day remand, Cook said.
That remand order legally forced Wong to remain in custody and await bail hearing, Cook said.
That detention of Wong, based on insufficient information given the justice in B.C., breached the accused’s Charter rights and the original Ontario arrest warrant, Cook said.
The second reason: The Ontario arrest warrant ordered police to “immediately” bring him back to the province to appear in court, Cook noted.
Canada’s Criminal Code requires police and judges to consider releasing an accused as early as possible and putting the least onerous conditions on that release.
As well, an accused has to be taken to a justice of the peace within 24 hours after the arrest, or, if that’s not possible, as soon as possible.
Strathroy officers didn’t even try to get Wong back as soon as possible, Cook said.
“Unfortunately, the overwhelming impression I am left with from these officers’ testimony is that it never crossed their minds to expedite (Wong’s) transport to Ontario because they had the luxury of a six-day remand order and pre-arranged flights home. The officers felt at liberty to take a day off,” Cook said.
“The officers’ conduct reflects a cavalier disregard for (Wong’s) liberty rights and a lack of understanding of their statutory duties.”
Cook also slammed the Strathroy-Caradoc officers’ confusing approach to seeking bail before a justice of the peace in Ontario.
It “is a startling illustration of what I find to be a systemic lack of appreciation of what is required of police officers” under the Criminal Code and “a complete abdication of the officers’ duty. I have little doubt such practice will continue without denunciation and intervention from the court,” Cook ruled.
A stay is the “most drastic remedy a criminal court can order. It permanently halts the prosecution of an accused. The truth-seeking function of a trial is frustrated,” Cook said, quoting an earlier Supreme Court of Canada decision.
But it was justified in this case, she ruled.
“The lack of understanding of the law of arrest and detention on the part of police . . . led directly to a flagrant and lengthy breach of the accused’s rights,” Cook concluded. “Police showed a cavalier and indifferent attitude of (Wong’s) constitutional rights and of their statutory obligations under” the Criminal Code.
The fraud case was sophisticated and led to the loss of more than $1 million to taxpayers, Cook noted. And if the allegations were true, Wong should have known about the money flowing through his account, she said.
But he was 72, with no record and there was no evidence he orchestrated the fraud, Cook said.
So in the balance, it was better to stay the case in the social interest of demanding police know, understand and assume responsibility for their legal obligations, Cook said.
Police should know, understand and assume responsibility for following the rules, but in general, time and time again, they don’t, Spratt says.
“There is no training, there is no formal review, there is no sort of empirical evaluation, and there’s no expectation that police officers learn from mistakes. We see the same mistakes being repeated again and again and again for the simple reason that the police officers do not care and our politicians do not care,” he says.
Politicians should care, because they’re supporting tax dollars spent on police departments that are increasingly demanding more money, Spratt says.
“Police should provide value for those funds by not having their cases thrown out of court and not violating violating the Charter rights of citizens. It’s just shocking that politicians aren’t interested in doing that.”
The London Free Press asked Strathroy-Caradoc police Chief Mark Campbell if the court ruling prompted reviews or changes in bail practices, or in the training of officers in detention and search warrant rules.
Campbell was also asked if the officers faced any disciplinary action or were provided training and/or review of the law about warrants and detention.
“The Strathroy-Caradoc Police Service respects court decisions and will always seek to improve operational processes to align with the court’s directions,” Campbell replied in an email.
Strathroy-Caradoc police work with justice partners to ensure Charter rights are respected, he wrote.
“The justice system also provides opportunities for legal arguments to be tested and judicial decisions to be written interpreting the law as it evolves over time,” Campbell wrote.
But he didn’t answer specific questions about the case and any impact on the police service.
Sgt. Cartwright declined to comment.
Const. Wright didn’t reply to a voice message left with him at the police department.
Strathroy-Caradoc taxpayers send about $6 million a year to their police force, accounting for about a quarter of all the property tax dollars the municipality collects.
While police service boards that oversee civic police forces aren’t involved in day-to-day operations of police, they’re public oversight bodies responsible for ensuring “adequate and effective policing” under Ontario law. Their responsibilities include establishing police department objectives, creating policies for effective management and monitoring the performance of the chief.
The Free Press asked Strathroy-Caradoc police board chair John Brennan, a civic councillor, whether the board had any discussions with the police chief about the Wong case and whether the board had recommended refreshing officer training in search warrants and detention law.
Brennan provided only a “no comment.”
Strathroy-Caradoc Mayor Colin Grantham, who also sits on the police board, was asked if there’s anything he wants to say to taxpayers about the case. He was also asked for his evaluation of the job police did and his thoughts about the end of a case involving more than $1 million in taxpayers’ money.
The mayor provided this statement:
“Chief Campbell and the men and women of our police service have my support and I am confident in their abilities.”
