Mounties docked pay for sex misconduct

Gary Dimmock, Ottawa (Ottawa Citizen) – Two Mounties have admitted to disgraceful conduct after it was revealed one was having sex while on duty with a female recruit and another officer was sending sexually explicit e-mails to a female intern.

The details of the cases come from rulings from disciplinary hearings held in Ottawa earlier this year and offer insight into the Mounties’ disciplinary process.

The trouble for Const. Stewart Masi began when a young woman expressed interest in joining the RCMP after it had launched its “A Career Nowhere Near Ordinary” recruiting drive. Masi, stationed in Parksville, B.C., starting going out for coffee with the woman and, then, in late 2008, enlisted her as a regular babysitter. The relationship lasted a year with Masi taking her on ride-alongs and having her help with presentations to schoolchildren, including one on how to keep teenagers safe.

One ride-along ended in a remote location in an unmarked police van, where they had consensual sex.

“During their relationship, Masi used an RCMP cellular phone to send and receive an inordinate number of text messages, including some while on duty,” the 2010 ruling states.

“The Board found that a reasonable person, with knowledge of all relevant circumstances, including the realities of policing in general and those of the RCMP in particular, would conclude by having sexual intercourse while on duty, in uniform, in a police vehicle, that Constable Masi conducted himself in a disgraceful manner. His conduct could bring discredit on the force and was sufficiently related to the activities of the force to warrant disciplinary measures,” the adjudication board said.

“As members of the force, we are expected to act in an exemplary manner and at all times our conduct must be beyond reproach … and that we are willing to live by a much stricter code of self-discipline,” the board stated.

The board noted the constable’s apology and docked him seven days pay.

The board said Masi was sending and receiving up to 30 text messages with the woman on his RCMP cellphone. The board noted that the national police force didn’t incur extra fees because its service provider program includes unlimited texting.

Another internal affairs case against Patrick Simpson, posted with the National Ports Enforcement Team in Hamilton, Ont., began in 2009. Simpson became obsessed with a female intern working in the mailroom. In April 2009, Simpson began a vulgar e-mail exchange with the intern, at first saying she had caught his eye and she was “exotic.” Then, on April 17, 2009, he e-mailed her saying: “I want you to strip for me. What colour is your underwear?” and other inappropriate comments.

At first, the female intern thought it was flattering, but then told him to stop. Simpson kept it up, writing that he’d pay her to strip for him. “You are driving me nuts. I was so wound up last week you made me pull my wire!”

Simpson also wrote about a sexual fantasy that had the intern’s boyfriend tied up to a bed and her wearing nothing but a pair of black boots.

“Do you touch yourself a lot? You should do it in front of him, he would like that,” Simpson wrote in a 2009 RCMP e-mail. The intern eventually went on leave for a few days because she was “stressed and emotional, had difficulty to sleep and experienced weight loss.”

Simpson apologized for his disgraceful conduct and told the disciplinary board that he “recognized that his misconduct added to the difficulties the force was facing at that time” and accepted full responsibility for his actions.

Simpson was docked seven days pay for his disgraceful conduct charge under the RCMP Act.

“Corporal Simpson was expected to lead by example,” the board ruled on June 9. “Force policy is clear on the subject of sexual harassment; it is not tolerated.”

Neither Simpson nor Masi returned messages for comment on this story.