Carrie Low, right, hugs a supporter during a break in her testimony at a Police Review Board hearing in Halifax on July 10.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Halifax police’s mishandling of the investigation into the sexual assault of a woman by two men is part of a system-wide problem, her advocates say, and they hope a review board hearing that concluded last week will change how similar cases are dealt with.
Over two weeks, a three-member Nova Scotia Police Review Board heard how police failed to search and secure the crime scene, waited 10 days to collect Carrie Low’s clothing and made errors that resulted in a year-long delay testing her blood for the date rape drug. Ms. Low testified she was drugged, kidnapped and gang raped by strangers on the night of May 18, 2018.
Two men were eventually charged for the sexual assault. One died before his trial. The other was recently acquitted owing to what Provincial Court Justice Jill Hartlen said was weak identity evidence, despite DNA profiles being found in Ms. Low’s rape kit.
Ms. Low, who took the rare step of having a publication ban lifted so she could speak out, blames police missteps for the acquittal.
“This isn’t just my story. This is everyone else’s story,” said Ms. Low, a 47-year-old mother of three daughters. “For me, that has been what’s kept me getting up every morning.”
The broad issue of police not taking sexual assault complaints seriously was revealed in The Globe and Mail’s 2017 award-winning Unfounded investigative series, named after a law-enforcement term that means an allegation is false or baseless. It showed sexual assault complaints in Canada were twice as likely to be dismissed as unfounded as those for other types of assault. A follow-up report in December found that the unfounded rate for sexual-assault complaints had dropped by more than half.
But the testimony at the review board showed how little regard officers had for the seriousness of the crime, said Emma Halpern, Ms. Low’s advocate from the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, arguing it is part of a wider “pattern of conduct amounting to negligence.” Ms. Low has requested the board make recommendations to improve the police force’s response to sexual assault survivors and for further disciplinary sanctions against the responding officer. Halifax Regional Police officer Constable Bojan Novakovic was docked eight hours pay for his handling of Ms. Low’s case.
“It’s very clear that there wasn’t one failure, there was a multitude. It would be ineffective to remedy that through disciplinary reviews. At this point, there appears to be six or seven officers that played a role in the failures and so there needs to be a systemic remedy,” Ms. Halpern said.
At the end of the two-week hearing, however, it was unclear whether the board, which is there to decide appeals on disciplinary matters, will make general recommendations about the case and the problems it exposed within the integrated RCMP and Halifax Regional Police sexual assault unit.
Ms. Low hugged a grey cardigan around her small frame in a Dartmouth hotel as she relived the night of her sexual assault for the review board on July 10. She described how she was at a bar in suburban Halifax on the night of May 18, 2018, when she was drugged, kidnapped and transported in the back of a car to a trailer on the outskirts of the city in East Preston. She awoke on a bare mattress drifting in and out of consciousness while two men sexually assaulted her.
Ms. Low went to the hospital the next morning, where sexual assault nurses completed a rape kit, which included taking her blood. Constable Novakovic asked Ms. Low inappropriate questions that amounted to victim blaming, two sexual assault nurse examiners testified. Constable Novakovic, who had five years’ experience and had never investigated a sexual assault, denied this. At the hearing, he accepted blame for his errors and said supervisors should have provided more oversight.
The review board heard that Constable Novakovic gave Ms. Low a plastic bag for her clothing and said an officer would come to her home and collect it. Constable Novakovic collected the evidence 10 days later, after Ms. Low complained to his supervisor.
Police did not go to the scene of the crime or secure it, despite Ms. Low providing the address. They did not apply for a search warrant either, records show. Ms. Low said she believes her underwear and one of her shoes would have been found if they had.
Tests done on Ms. Low’s blood sample, which found a date rape drug in her system, were delayed for more than a year because of paperwork errors.
A police internal review found former RCMP officer Jerell Smith was negligent for failing to collect Ms. Low’s clothing, making errors on forms that resulted in delayed lab tests and failing to secure the scene. Mr. Smith, a member of the joint Halifax-RCMP sexual assault unit, was ordered to undergo training, but he has not returned to policing. He claimed he faced bullying and harassment over the case.
At the hearing, now-retired supervising sergeant Don Stienburg denied that the delays were crucial to the case, saying mistakes were made but people corrected them as best they could.
One of Ms. Low’s lawyers, Jason Cooke, said any potential recommendations should send a message that sexual assault is a serious crime and should be treated as such. “If we were talking about murder and you said you didn’t attend the premises, you didn’t collect the clothing, I mean would there be any question that that would fall far beyond the standard? What’s the difference?”
Halifax police declined to say what changes have been made to ensure supervisory oversight of sexual assault investigations. “Given that the review process is currently ongoing, we are not in a position to discuss,” spokesman Constable John MacLeod said.
Lawyers for both sides have two months to make final written submissions.