A former journalist who became a police officer with the Sûreté du Québec in Val-d'Or described the allegations contained in a report on Radio-Canada's Enquête program as “grotesque” and so shocking to the collective imagination that they are He complains that people are still talking about it years later.
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“We want to move on to something else, but the report was so well illustrated… It confirmed people in their own ideology, they want to believe in it adamantly,” said Jean-Raphaël Drolet this Monday in the courthouse from Montreal.
In a sometimes emotional voice, the police officer testified as part of a defamation lawsuit brought by 42 police officers against the state-owned company in connection with the report “Abuse of the SQ: Women break the silence,” which was broadcast on the Enquête program in 2015.
Journalist Josée Dupuis then gave the floor to indigenous women from Val-d'Or in Abitibi who claimed to have been victims of physical and sexual violence at the hands of police officers.
The report caused a shockwave and prompted the government to set up the Viens Commission on Aboriginal Relations and Public Services.
However, for the police officers behind the civil lawsuit, the journalist had done her job poorly, particularly by not verifying the information contained in the report.
Radio-Canada is defending itself by claiming it did everything “by the book” and will later have its journalist testify to prove it.
“Grotesque”
The police, for their part, are demanding almost $3 million in defamation from the state-owned company and have been appearing before the judge for two weeks to explain the damage the complaint has caused them.
When it was his turn to testify that Monday, Sergeant Drolet attacked the report directly, calling some of its allegations “completely false.”
“I wondered where the impartiality was,” said the sergeant, who, among other things, was a journalist for Radio-Canada before becoming a police officer.
He gave the example of a discreet place where, according to Enquête, police officers bought sexual favors from indigenous women.
“This is not an abandoned place,” the sergeant said. It's absurd, far-fetched. »
As for the allegation that police officers stored crates of beer in the trunk of their patrol cars, he assures us that this is physically impossible given how much equipment is already stacked there.
“It’s grotesque,” he then said of other allegations of physical abuse that would have been refuted by a simple review.
Effects
However, the impact of the report was very real, he told the court.
“It targeted all the police officers in Val-d'Or,” said the man, who now works in communications.
He therefore claimed that he had to explain himself to his family and respond to doubts about his integrity.
“There was anger, fear, stress,” he said, explaining the amounts demanded in court. To this day I'm still afraid of being spoken to about it. I want it to stop, but the report has captured the collective imagination…”
The trial before Judge Babak Barin is scheduled to last just over two months.
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