Family of soldier who committed suicide won’t get to see interim report of investigation

The family of a Canadian soldier who committed suicide more than six years ago is struggling to understand why it can't see an interim report into their complaints about how the military police handled the investigation.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Sheila and Shaun Fynes and their lawyer, former colonel Michel Drapeau, have been denied a look at the document produced by the Military Police Complaints Commission after extensive hearings.

They will get a copy of the final report but only when it is released publicly, the Citizen said. The rule leaves the family "out in the cold," Drapeau told the newspaper.

“It is the law, but it’s a bad law,” he said. “It’s offensive that they aren’t allowed to see a report about their son.”

Cpl. Stuart Langridge, a 28-year-old veteran of tours in Bosnia and Afghanistan, hanged himself at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton in March 2008, succumbing to depression.

His mother and stepfather brought a total of 30 complaints against 13 members of the forces' National Investigation Service, alleging their probe of Langridge's death was aimed at protecting the soldier's superiors who'd written him off as a drunk and a drug user, the Citizen said.

[ Related: Canadian Forces still grappling with the problem of soldier suicides ]

A second investigation did no better, especially after it was learned investigators withheld a suicide note written by Langridge and found at the death scene from the family for 14 months.

The Fyneses say they believe their son was an example of the kind of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) now recognized as a major concern among returning veterans of the Afghan mission, the Citizen said.

The complaints commission began hearing evidence in March 2012 in a public proceeding that lasted 62 days and heard from 90 witnesses, the commission said in a news release Thursday. Testimony on issues such as the suicide note and why Langridge's body was left hanging for hours after it was discovered made national headlines.

The release gives no hint of what's in the document, which has been sent for review to Defence Minister Rob Nicholson, the chief of the defence staff, the armed forces' judge advocate general and the provost marshal, who heads the military police.

The final report will be sent to the Fynes family and to military police investigators who were the target of their complaints, and will be posted on the commission's web site, the commission said.

[ Related: Canadian soldier suicides poorly tracked, veterans groups say ]

But Drapeau said the lack of transparency around the interim report could let officials shape the final report without the family's input before it's made public, the Citizen said.

“The (commission) is investigating their complaints about the loss of their cherished son,” Drapeau said. “No one has a bigger interest in the outcome of these hearings than Mr. and Mrs. Fynes. Providing them with a copy of the interim report should be a no-brainer."

There's no deadline for National Defence officials to respond to the interim report, Drapeau said, but it should take no more than a month.

The complaints commission can't order changes in the way the military police conducts investigations; it can only make recommendations. However, the military police and its lawyers must report on whether recommendations have been implemented and if not, why not, the Citizen said.

Meanwhile, said Sheila Fynes, veterans with PTSD and other mental disorders continue to kill themselves, with news reports chronicling as many as nine suicides in the last few months.

“The response today seems to have changed little from the response six years ago,” she told the Citizen. “Stuart was at the leading edge of it and was painted to be a terrible person. It still enrages me.”