Quebec police chief harassed by his officers reinstated: court

A landmark decision issued by the Court of Quebec has reinstated a police chief who was the victim of a “vicious and degrading” harassment campaign by his own officers.

In a decision his lawyer calls “historic,” Michel Ledoux was also awarded back pay for the four years he has been out of his job since he was unfairly dismissed as chief of police of Mont-Tremblant, Que.

“We’re very happy for Mr. Ledoux,” says his lawyer, Thomas Villeneuve-Gagné. “He wants to go back to work and finish the job he was hired to do.”

Ledoux had been an officer for 30 years in Montreal before he was named police chief of the Laurentians resort town in 2007. An outsider hired to help improve discipline and preparedness in court, Ledoux quickly earned the ire of his subordinates and members of the police union.

In 2011, after Ledoux issued suspensions to two officers — one of whom was on the executive of the police union — the chief and his assistant became the victims of targeted personal attacks. Vulgar images appeared at the station depicting Ledoux as a dictator, a klansman and as a monkey engaged in sex acts. Profanity-laden flyers were posted on Ledoux’s office door and around the station insinuating he was mentally ill and carried sexually transmitted diseases.

In one incident, a fake bomb was left hanging on Ledoux’s office door handle, and in another he arrived at work to discover himself hanging in effigy. Other times he arrived to find his parking spot or his office physically barricaded.

Tired of the harassment, with permission from the city Ledoux purchased a CCTV camera disguised inside an alarm clock and a keychain with a hidden microphone. It wasn’t long before he captured video and audio proving the ringleader of the attacks against him was the president of the Mont-Tremblant police union, Sgt. Serge-Alexandre Bouchard.

In all he gathered more than 67 hours of audio and video between Feb. 23 and April 12, 2011. When he presented evidence of the campaign against him to the town administration, Ledoux was suspended and charged with five counts of illegal surveillance.

“We defended Mr. Ledoux before a jury (against the criminal surveillance allegations) in May 2014, and he was acquitted by 12 citizens of every charge laid against him,” Villeneuve-Gagné tells Yahoo Canada News. “The plaintiff in the criminal charges against him was the one who became the chief of police, the one who took his job.”

With the criminal charges quashed, Ledoux proceeded with a civil appeal case against the city for “premature, unjust and illegal” dismissal. The three judge tribunal that heard the case submitted its decision on Monday.

“There is no jurisprudence in Canada on such a matter. This is why it’s a historic judgment,” says Villeneuve-Gagné. “They concluded that the city should have only suspended him for four months. That suspension would have been over in April 2012; imagine the nightmare he’s been living for the last four years.”

The tribunal concluded that Ledoux had been the victim of “mobbing,” an intense and systematic form of psychological harassment. According to the National Post, Ledoux was so distraught by the harassment and personal attacks against him that he contemplated suicide.

“We were successful before the jury, we were successful before three judges and now we have a lawsuit that is pending (against the City of Mont-Tremblant) to recover our legal fees,” says Villeneuve-Gagné. “The law in Quebec says that if someone is charged for an act that he committed while he was working, the city has an obligation, if he is acquitted, to reimburse (legal fees). The city has refused, so we have to sue them.”

Villeneuve-Gagné adds that they also filed a lawsuit against the city seeking $2.5 million in damages for Ledoux’s suffering.

Neither Ledoux nor representatives from the City of Mont-Tremblant could be reached for comment, though a city spokesperson said earlier it needs more time to study the 148-page decision.

The current employment status of the officers who harassed Ledoux is unknown and the court’s decision cannot be appealed.