An Ontario court has delivered a strong rebuke of what it described as the continuing problem of racial profiling by police officers, finding that a man was stopped by Toronto police in 2011 because of his race and was then assaulted.

Mutaz Elmardy was appealing the decision of a trial judge who awarded him $27,000 in 2015, finding that he had been unlawfully arrested, searched and assaulted by an officer. But Justice Frederick Myers did not find there was evidence Elmardy had been racially profiled.

A panel of Divisional Court judges disagreed when they granted Elmardy’s appeal this week, increasing the total damages police must pay to $80,000.

“Racial profiling has a serious impact on the credibility and effectiveness of our police services. It has led to distrust and injustice. It must stop,” wrote Justice Harriet Sachs for the panel.

“There is a need for an award of damages that is significant enough to vindicate society’s interest in having a police service comprised of officers who do not brutalize its citizens because of the colour of their skin and that sends the message to that service that this conduct must stop.

“The courts and others have already made statements about the serious, wrongful nature of this type of conduct. Yet it continues to occur.”

Elmardy’s lawyer, Andrew MacDonald, called the racial profiling finding a vindication for his client.

“For him, he’s very happy that the truth came out about the true circumstances of his unconstitutional detention by the police,” he told the Star.

Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said she was unable to comment as the matter has now been referred to the professional standards unit for investigation.

The trial into Elmardy’s lawsuit in 2015 heard that Const. Andrew Pak and Const. Candice Poole, who were in their police cruiser, spotted Elmardy walking alone on Jan. 15, 2011 with his hands in his pockets.

Pak testified that he “had a hunch” the man was violating his bail terms by walking alone, and that he had looked at the cruiser as it was driving by. Poole testified she had an “immediate concern” he might be carrying a weapon because his hands were in his pockets.

They did a U-turn and asked Elmardy questions. Myers, in his ruling, said Elmardy “was hostile to police,” and that when he refused to take his hands out of his pockets, the officers subdued him and Pak punched him twice in the face. Elmardy was then knocked to the ground, handcuffed and left on the ice with his hands exposed to the cold weather for 20 to 25 minutes.

The officers did not give him a reason for his detention or advise him of his right to a lawyer, Sachs wrote in the appeal decision released this week.

Elmardy, who was walking home from evening prayers at his mosque, was subjected to the controversial police practice of “carding,” as officers then filled out a card with information about Elmardy, writing that his skin colour was black and his place of birth was Sudan.

The trial judge had also found the officers lied about the reason for stopping Elmardy, Sachs noted, saying their explanations had been rejected by Myers and were “infected with racial stereotypes.”

Pak was assigned at the time to the now-disbanded Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy team, known as TAVIS, and which was criticized for its high rate of carding. Myers said Pak “took the law into his own hands and administered some street justice.”

The president of the Toronto Police Association, Mike McCormack, who could not be reached for this story, told the Star in 2015 that the union was “concerned” about Myers’ comments following the trial into Elmardy’s lawsuit.

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McCormack also noted that Pak was cleared of wrongdoing by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, a civilian agency, although its decision is not available to the public because the complaint was found to have been unsubstantiated.

“In this case, the officers’ unreasonable beliefs about the appellant caused them to assault the appellant, unreasonably search him and forcibly restrain him,” Sachs wrote this week. “In other words, instead of presuming his innocence, they assumed and acted as if he were guilty and dangerous.

“He must be violating his bail and he must be carrying a gun. These assumptions, for which there is no explanation other than the colour of the appellant’s skin, caused them to blatantly and aggressively violate the appellant’s constitutional rights.”