Defence lawyers are crying foul regarding the trial of Helen Grus, an Ottawa Police Service (OPS) detective accused of discreditable conduct after investigating the vaccination status of the mothers of deceased infants.Last week, defence lawyer Bath-Sheba van den Berg asked for the disciplinary hearing case against Grus to be dismissed.“The prosecutor has not proffered evidence relevant to the elements of the discreditable conduct charge against Detective Grus. Upon the facts in the law, no case has been made against Detective Grus,” van den Berg told the tribunal.Defence lawyer Blair Ector said because the charge sheet read the “foregoing conduct constitutes an offence," the prosecution first had to prove Grus had committed what she was accused of and that they had failed.The charges remained and the case continued. On January 10, Ector had a more serious allegation. He said the head of the service’s Professional Standards Unit had intimidated Const. Grus by emailing her directions not to use OPS internal documents for her defence.“That’s witness tampering, that is intimidation, that is obstruction. This tribunal should be outraged. I am trying to pull back from exceeding anger from this,” said Ector.“That is beyond unconscionable and we‘d like to call him as a witness and I’d like to cross-examine him as a hostile witness.”However, prosecution lawyer Vanessa Stewart said defence counsel had been repeatedly “put on notice” the OPS would not allow its internal documents to be “handed out inappropriately” and put into the public record.Van den Berg responded that the OPS had no written policy requiring permission to access OPS documents for Const. Grus’s defense. “We have to ask the Crown, the prosecutor, for permission for the defence?” she asked.“That is not democracy. That is not the rule of law. That is terrifying for police officers who have to answer to these allegations of misconduct,” said van den Berg.Chris Renwick, the hearing officer who is adjudicating the hearing, warned Grus should not have “carte blanche to access and submit any and all OPS records, documents, policies, orders and anything else for the purpose of the defence.”Renwick also said it would be “erroneous” to not allow Grus to use OPS documents as it would “significantly hamper the defence.”The next day, Ector filed a police report at the hearing itself against the head of the Professional Standards Unit.“If I may stand, I’m a witness to a crime and I’m filing a police report right now. I’m an officer of the court,” Ector said January 11. Renwick adjourned the hearing and Ector and van den Berg walked out of the room to file a police report for the crime of witness intimidation.The defence lawyers introduced a motion to remove Stewart for prosecutorial misconduct for threatening Grus by saying she had been “put on notice.”“This motion is not written lightly. It’s based on the exact words, three words in particular, used yesterday,” said van den Berg.Renwick replied that the hearing was becoming “adversarial" and later said defence lawyers had shown a “pattern of disrespect toward the hearing officer.”Van Den Berg said there had been a “pattern of tribunal bias, sir, with all due respect.”Later Ector said he did not want any more threats against Grus, to which Renwick replied, "We haven't established there have been threats."Van den Berg said, “Are you suggesting, sir, that we have not witnessed what we have witnessed?” she said. “We are actually officers of the court and we are informing the tribunal here that we have witnessed a criminal offence and you are telling us that that is not true.”Former Toronto police officer and independent journalist Donald Best reported on Twitter ("X") on January 13 the Ottawa police refused to allow Grus' lawyers to appear by video conference for a two-hour meeting, forcing them to fly to Ottawa.The flight added an unwanted added bill for Grus. Her GiveSendGo page remains almost $100,000 short of its $150,000 goal. Her hearings will resume February 14 and 15.Best, who has attended the Ottawa-area hearings on Grus, said the proceedings had a visible effect on Grus, as shown in a post to Twitter ("X") below.
