After informing Durham Regional Police that she and others on her quiet Whitby street believed two neighbourhood brothers had broken into a nearby home and stolen two guns, Margaret Stack pleaded with the officer to never reveal her identity.

“My only concern is that I have two little boys,” she told Durham police officer James Liepsig in a videotaped interview at the force’s police station in February, 2002.

“That is everybody’s concern,” Liepsig responded, reassuring Stack her information would not be released. “This is between you and I.”

But after the brothers were arrested for the gun thefts, it quickly became evident Liepsig had been far from discreet — and did nothing to stop the boys’ family from accessing the video of Stack’s interview, a recording he did not even tell her was being made.

Stack and her husband allege in a recent court case that the boys’ family then launched a relentless campaign of wrath — harassment that included “constantly” spying and staring through windows and “clucking” and making chicken actions when she was on the street. It culminated in an attempt to hit Stack with a truck, sending her running for cover behind a tree. Stack and her husband eventually put their home up for sale.

In what experts say is a legal precedent, Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Gray ordered Durham police to pay Stack $345,000 in damages, ruling the force did “nothing whatsoever” to preserve Stack’s anonymity.

There was no attempt remove her name from paperwork or edit the videotape made available to the boys’ lawyer, and the Crown attorneys who prosecuted the case were never told of any promises of anonymity, Gray wrote in his decision, released late last month.

“At the very least there must be a duty to take reasonable care to preserve anonymity. In this case, it is clear that reasonable care was not taken,” he wrote in the ruling.

Gray also criticized the Durham force’s lack of response when Stack’s husband, Chad Nissen, called to report the harassment and the neighbour’s alleged attempt to hit Stack with his truck, writing that the police “did almost nothing about it.”

Dave Selby, spokesman for Durham Regional Police, said in an email Tuesday that a notice of appeal has been filed. Liepsig would not be available for comment because the legal process is still underway, Selby said.

Margaret Hoy, Stack’s lawyer, said the decision is not just a win for her client and her family but for members of the public who feel compelled to bring vital information to the attention of police.

“They have the right to believe that when they are told something by the police that the police will keep their word and they will act honestly,” Hoy said in an interview. “There’s a need for people to step forward. They are essential to the administration of justice.”

Reached at home, the boys’ father — who cannot be identified because his sons were underage at the time of their arrests — denied there had been any campaign of harassment or attempt to run over Stack with his pickup truck.

Only one of his sons was charged in connection to the gun theft after one of the firearms was found in a nearby creek. He did three months’ probation, the father said.

Court heard Stack is still suffering from post traumatic stress disorder caused by the two months of harassment and “relentless” spying by the neighbours.

Stack testified the neighbours would come to their living room window or onto the front step of their house or driveway “and glare at them,” Gray wrote.

Nissen told court he called the boys’ father after the alleged attempt to strike Stack with the truck, and he took notes of their conversation. Nissen testified his neighbour called Stack “Judas” and said: “I’m going to watch you and your family under a microscope and when you screw up I will return the (courtesy). I will pay her back 10-fold.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Before they decided to move a different area in Durham Region, Nissen testified the family tried boarding up their fence, closing the shutters and curtains throughout the house and even arranged to access their home through their neighbour’s backyard, according to the ruling.

Toronto lawyer Sean Dewart, who has been involved in a previous case involving an informant’s identity being revealed by a Crown attorney, said he is not aware of any other such trials in Ontario and possibly in Canada involving police identification of an anonymous informant, though that kind of information leak has certainly happened before.

“It’s definitely precedent-setting,” he said. “What it really shows you is that overly zealous policing really messed up someone’s life … These people sustained very tangible harm and incurred a lot of expenses because of extraordinarily foolish policing, and they get the compensation that I think they deserved.”