Police team up with advocates for 'unfounded' sex assault case review

Hamilton police are teaming up with anti-violence against women advocates to review some 700 sexual assault cases since 2010, focusing especially on times when police have deemed a case "unfounded."

When an allegation is made to police and it is deemed unfounded, that means the investigator doesn't believe a criminal offence was attempted or occurred.

Along with the case review, police and the advocates will also be looking at how their performance haschanged, if at all, since the service added new training and protocols in 2015.

And they'll be looking at the numbers and the way data is tracked and reported.

"We need clear data so we can have a very realistic data snapshot of what's going on in our city," said Yolisa De Jager, chair of the Woman Abuse Working Group. "Numbers play a role."

• Hamilton and Halton police dismiss almost 1 in 3 sex assault reports as baseless
• Hamilton police say its official stats on its handling of sexual assaults are wrong
• Police board votes for review of Hamilton's 'unfounded' sex assault allegations

30 per cent 'unfounded'

Hamilton's police board last month directed the service to do the review, after a Globe and Mail investigation explored how often police services in Canadadismiss a sexual assault complaint as "unfounded."

It showed police in Hamilton andHaltonand a number of other Ontario services well above thenational average of 19 per cent. Hamilton's rate: 30 per cent.

We have mutual clients. We have mutual goals in terms of safe communities.- Yolisa De Jager, director of women's services, Good Shepherd Hamilton

After the board's vote, police met with members of a local consortium called the Woman Abuse Working Group, whose members come from more than 20 agencies in Hamilton working to end violence against women and their children.

Hamilton police have said that internal statisticsit keeps notits own officially recorded onesare the bestmeasure of how well it handles sexual assault complaints.

That response was called a "PR smokescreen" by an academic who studies unfounded cases.

On Monday, Insp. David Hennick, who oversees the service's sexual assault unit, said the review will cover even how the data is collected andhow it's reported both externally and internally.

'You lose folks along the way in that process'

The women's advocates say they hope collaborating will help tighten some of the gaps in the process for a sexual assault victim to seek justice.

"It's safe to say that within the women's advocates community, (we see) a problem with reporting sexual assaults," De Jager said, She's also the director of women's services at Good Shepherdin addition to beingthe chair of the Woman Abuse Working Group.

We know that sexual offences are grossly underreported.- Insp. David Hennick, Hamilton Police Service

Some who experience sexual assault don't tell anyone. Others will tell a social worker or an advocate but won't take it to police. When cases are taken to police, it can be daunting seeing how many cases actually make it to charges or conviction.

"You lose folks along the way in that process," De Jager said. "It's clear that the justice system isn't working for the victim."

Hennick said he hopes the review helps the community to have faith in the police service.

"We know that sexual offences are grossly underreported," he said. "It's important for us. We want to find ways to increase reporting for sexual assault."

The team will review cases of sexual assault going back to 2010.

'We want to make sure that we get it right'

The review is expected to take three to four months, and both police and advocates said they want to spend the time in order to absorb the others' experience.

"We don't want to rush the review. We want to make sure that we get it right," Hennick said. "Spending the time with the community to share their knowledge and expertise with us."

De Jager said that goes both ways. It's helpful, she said, for people in her shoes to better understand how police investigate sexual assaults.

"In terms of women's advocates and police, we have a long history," De Jager said. "We have mutual clients. We have mutual goals in terms of safe communities. We have mutual goals that we can work toward.

"This is one sort of gap in the system that I'm encouraged to see that we're addressing."

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca