Alarming statistics show a shocking number of sexual assault cases in Saskatchewan are dismissed as unfounded.
Victims who have their complaint labelled as unfounded might question why they came forward in the first place, Heather Pocock, Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Centre’s assistant director, said.
“I think they would feel betrayed, and like, I’m all by myself…nobody believes me. What about me? What am I supposed to do now? This happened to me and I don’t feel like anybody’s listening to me,” Pocock said.
Fifteen per cent of sexual assault complaints to the Regina Police Service were labelled unfounded last year, and in 2015 it was 18 per cent, according to Amy Balfour, Regina Police’s strategic services manager.
“If a crime is deemed unfounded, what that means is that there is not enough evidence to pursue an investigation to prove that a criminal allegation occurred,” Balfour said. “So someone could make an allegation that a crime occurred but we can’t prove it, or they recant, or circumstances change and we have no evidence.”
Regina police are concerned about the criticism they have been receiving since the numbers came to light, Balfour said.
“What we’re really concerned about is the questions around how thorough our investigations are, about whether or not we trust victims to tell the truth and then about whether or not we believe them,” Balfour said.
“We take an oath to investigate every crime and all the evidence. We don’t choose what we investigate based on whether we believe a victim or not.”
According to a Globe and Mail investigation, 17 per cent of sexual assault allegations in Regina and 15 per cent in Saskatoon were dismissed as unfounded from 2010 to 2014.
“Sexual assaults we know are vastly under-reported to police, so we understand that first of all, even the numbers we do have are just barely scraping the surface of the social issue,” Balfour said.
“So we are concerned, we want victims to come forward, we want to investigate. We want to bring people to justice. It’s just an incredibly difficult crime for people to share with police, and it’s incredibly difficult for us to prosecute,” she said.
“Most times it happens in a private residence where there are no witnesses with a whole bunch of layers of complexity. Sometimes people are drinking, sometimes they’re asleep, sometimes they know the person in which they’re involved with,” Balfour added.
“Without public trust, we are very ineffective,” she said, adding that the agency will be reviewing all files that were labelled unfounded over the last couple of years.
“Our intent is to work with the family services division and our vice unit to go through all those files to make sure that there’s an additional oversight, to make sure that all the evidence was collected, that all the avenues were exhausted, and that we did everything we could before we had to close the file,” Balfour said.
Saskatoon police are reviewing all cases that were dismissed as unfounded dating back to 2010.
RCMP are also reviewing all unfounded cases from last year and sampling historic ones.
Anyone who is concerned about how their case was handled can contact Saskatchewan’s public complaints commission.