Glenn Stannard, chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission. releases the final report in the Fynes Public Interest Hearing during a news conference Tuesday, March 10, 2015 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The head of Canada's military police is apologizing for his force's incompetence after an inquiry found investigations into the suicide of an Afghanistan veteran were conducted by inexperienced personnel who made unacceptable errors.
Colonel Rob Delaney, the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, said Tuesday that a highly critical report by the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission into investigations of the 2008 death of Corporal Stuart Langridge underlines the fact that mistakes were made and he will take steps to correct them.
But Glenn Stannard, the chair of the complaints commission, said the military's written response to his 1,008-page report was dismissive and most of the 46 recommendations were rejected or ignored.
On the heels of a spate of soldiers' suicides, the commission's findings released Tuesday raise questions about how well those deaths are being investigated by the people assigned to determine whether the military could have done anything to prevent them.
Sheila and Shaun Fynes, the mother and stepfather of Cpl. Langridge, asked the complaints commission to look into their allegations that the military police failed to adequately conduct three separate investigations into the death of their son. In the end, the commission dismissed the Fyneses' accusation that the military acted with bias, but buttressed their concerns about the actions of the investigators.
Mr. Stannard said the military police demonstrated a lack of professionalism and competence in their dealings with the Fyneses, including withholding a suicide note from the grieving parents for 14 months. He told reporters that a 2008 investigation into Cpl. Langridge's suicide was conducted "without any apparent plan or direction, mostly due to the inexperience of the investigators. The 2009 investigation was conducted without a clear understanding of the nature of the complaint and without asking for necessary legal advice."
As for an investigation that was conducted in 2010, he said, the military police "did not conduct any actual investigation, yet nevertheless felt able to conclude that the Canadian Forces could not have been culpably negligent in Cpl. Langridge's death. …"
Col. Delaney offered a public apology to the Fyneses on Tuesday.
"They came to us with allegations of wrongdoing, criminal wrongdoing, on the part of the Canadian Armed Forces. Our investigations failed to live up to their expectations. For that I am very sorry," said the Provost Marshal. "In the matter of the suicide note," he said, "again, that was a mistake on the part of us that is unforgivable."
Ms. Fynes said she is pleased with the complaints commission's report, but it has done nothing to restore her confidence in the military police.
"Over and above the loss of our son, the military have caused us to suffer a cruel emotional, physical and financial toll. This report highlights the need for a complete revamp of the military justice system," she said. "The current process needs to be replaced with arm's-length civilian coroner and civilian policing functions."
Ms. Fynes said she also hoped Defence Minister Jason Kenney would sit down with her and her family to talk about what should be done differently
Among other things, the complaints commission recommended that military police investigators should gain sufficient field experience in sudden death cases before they are qualified to lead such investigations. But the commission says 70 per cent of its recommendations were rejected by the military in its written response to an interim report completed last May.
Col. Delaney, who told reporters that his team has grown much more experienced at conducting sudden-death investigations since the suicide of Cpl. Langridge, said it is unfortunate that the commission has interpreted the military's response as a refusal to act.
"What I have suggested to the commission," he said, "is, in each and every case where they have provided a recommendation to me, I will look very closely at it to determine whether we have already taken steps to strengthen that particular or whether we need to do additional work with some of our policing partners to determine what would be the best approach going forward."