The Durham police officers said they would take the mentally unstable man to the hospital. He was suicidal and needed to see a doctor.

Instead, the officers interrogated him in an attempt to find some dirt on a female sergeant who had lodged complaints about a senior officer’s abusive and misogynistic behaviour, according to allegations filed in an internal police complaint.

The group of officers then told the suicidal man — the female officer’s ex-husband — that he “better be ‘solid’ and not tell anyone about what had happened,” the complaint alleges.

The “horrific and corrupt set of circumstances,” as Sgt. Nicole Whiteway describes the incident in her July 2017 complaint, are part of what she calls a campaign of harassment against her by a Durham police inspector and other officers.

Whiteway, a 22-year veteran with 16 years at the Durham force, first complained to Durham police about Insp. Nick Lisi in 2016, alleging that the high-ranking officer had harassed her and colleagues, publicly ridiculing his subordinates’ personal lives and physical attributes.

She alleges that Lisi made derogatory comments about her ex-husband’s mental health and derided her for seeking an accommodated schedule to care for her young son, who has a life-threatening health condition.

Lisi told the Star the allegations against him are untrue. “The information you have is erroneous and incorrect,” he said.

According to a memo signed by a Durham deputy chief, an external investigator had substantiated some of the allegations contained in Whiteway’s first complaint while dismissing others as embellished, false or malicious. The memo said the investigator’s specific findings are confidential, and they have not been publicly released.

Durham police said it would dock Lisi 160 hours pay, according to the memo. Durham police sources say Lisi has refused to accept the penalty, and the matter is expected to go to a public disciplinary hearing.

The alleged incident with the suicidal man happened this past spring, while Whiteway’s original workplace harassment complaint was still being reviewed.

Her July complaint to Durham police is now being investigated by the force’s professional standards unit. The allegations have not been proven.

On April 21, Whiteway called Durham police in a panic. Her ex-husband was taking care of their daughter for the weekend, and he was threatening to commit suicide, her complaint says. (The Star is not naming the ex-husband because of his mental health. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.)

Durham officers eventually found the man and his daughter in his truck on a rural highway. The daughter returned home with Whiteway. Meanwhile, the officers told Whiteway that they had arrested her ex-husband under the Mental Health Act and would take him to a hospital in Oshawa to be evaluated, her complaint alleges.

When she spoke with the officers later, her complaint says, she was told she couldn’t speak with her ex because he was seeing a doctor.

But the officers only took the man to the hospital parking lot, she alleges.

“It was explained to him that this was just being done because the police cars have GPS and the police officers dealing with him needed a record to show that they were at the hospital if ever questioned about the incident,” her complaint says.

The man was grilled about his ex-wife’s personal life, Whiteway’s complaint alleges.

“(He) was mistreated and threatened in order to manufacture evidence to discredit me as an officer which I believe is related to my complaint against Inspector Nick Lisi,” her complaint says.

The complaint does not indicate that Lisi was among the officers that allegedly interrogated her ex-husband.

She alleges that after as many as 2½ hours, the officers took the man back to his truck and told him “he better be ‘solid’ and not tell anyone about what had happened.”

Whiteway’s complaint says that the hospital could not find any admission records for her ex from the night of the incident.

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Whiteway is now on stress leave. She would not speak to the Star out of fear she would be disciplined by the police force, said her lawyer, Peter Brauti.

“We want to see accountability of people who weren’t doing their job. We want to see accountability of people who may have behaved in a corrupt manner,” Brauti said.

“We want to see transparency. We want to be told what Durham police are doing about this.”

Whiteway’s ex-husband has also filed a complaint about the incident with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, a civilian police oversight agency, Brauti said.

Brauti said he has asked Durham police to let the agency investigate Whiteway’s complaint.

“The complete lack of trust demands that an outside agency look at this,” he said. “We have a problem with the police policing themselves.”

An ongoing Star investigation found that Lisi is one of two senior Durham police officials who have been accused of harassing behaviour, including mocking officers’ personal lives and making vulgar public comments. The other is Rob Wallington, a civilian in charge of the police force’s strategic planning unit.

A Durham police spokesperson said the force would not answer specific questions about “internal, personnel matters.”

“Inappropriate behaviour from any employee will not be tolerated and we are committed to an open, professional and equitable workplace,” the spokesperson, Dave Selby, said in a statement.

Durham’s police union said the force has a “cultural problem,” and accuses management of not doing enough to investigate rank-and-file officers’ complaints or protect employees from harassment.

In October, Durham police Chief Paul Martin sent out a force-wide email after an investigation “clearly identified misconduct” by one senior officer. Martin’s email does not name the officer, though multiple Durham police sources say it is in reference to Wallington.

The chief hired a retired deputy chief to probe the matter, which is expected to be finished this month.

Martin told Durham officers in the email that he will give them “a full account” of its findings “while respecting the limits imposed by respect for privacy and law.

“It is by being open and confident about our values and our conduct that we maintain the trust of our community — especially at times when questions have been raised,” Martin’s email said.