An internal review into the London Police Service’s handling of sexual assault investigations is three months behind schedule, but its top cop says results will be released to the public.
At the start of February, London Police Chief John Pare announced the force would launch a probe into coding, categorization, and how sexual assault investigations were concluded after a damning Globe and Mail report found the London Police Service had one of the highest unfounded rates in the country.
At the time, he hoped to have results completed in one month.
“The last time I said about 30 days,” Pare told AM980 Thursday afternoon. “Now it’s been about four months, so I’m not putting another timeline on it.”
The Globe report released earlier this year examined how sexual assault cases were handled by police services across the country. It said London police reported 259 sexual assault complaints in 2014, but the number rose to 390 when it included all the cases dismissed as “unfounded.”
It prompted the service to reach out to community partners in an effort to better train investigators on responding to the needs of victims.
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“We did some joint training with Anova around trauma-informed interviewing,” said Pare. He added that he’s reached out to community partners to identify who should be on a leadership table, who will help shape the force’s approach to sexual assault investigations.
The review promised to re-open and re-examine sexual assault cases dating back to 2010. It came alongside a formal apology from the police chief to sexual assault victims.
Other forces across the country also announced plans to review sexual assault cases in the wake of the Globe report.
On Feb. 8, provincial police said they would review about 4,000 sexual assault cases from between 2010 and 2014 that were designated “unfounded.” The following day, the RCMP announced they would do the same for all cases designated as such from 2016, along with a sampling of historical cases.
The findings of both reviews have yet to be made public.
In February, OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said the force would examine the cases “over the next several weeks” and then release an analysis summary once the review had concluded, while RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson said their review was expected to take around two months.
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