VANCOUVER—He was her superior officer and she claims he coerced her into a sexual relationship.

He denied it, they were both brought before a B.C. RCMP conduct board and on the last day of the hearing, the senior officer admitted he indeed had sex with his subordinate.

Now after both were found guilty of disgraceful conduct on the job, Const. Susan Gastaldo is facing termination while her former boss, Staff-Sgt. Travis Pearson, could get a demotion.

The development comes as the RCMP says it has received more than 1,000 harassment complaints across the force in the past six years, the Star’s Tonda MacCharles reports. It also comes as three dozen women, former and current RCMP officers from across the country, step forward in a bid to join a class-action lawsuit against the force claiming systemic harassment and bullying.

Lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, who represents Gastaldo in a separate civil case against the RCMP, says his client’s situation shows that those who bring forward complaints about the RCMP are more severely punished than those found guilty.

“Susan Gastaldo refused to bow down to pressure and, as a consequence, she could lose her job. The RCMP board decided she was more guilty than Pearson was even though he was a senior officer and maintained his denial up to the last day,” said Kosteckyj, a former RCMP officer.

He says it will be an uphill battle for female RCMP officers who claim harassment and bullying by their fellow male officers to get justice.

“Time and time again, we have seen the RCMP is not interested in dealing with harassment and is more interested in protecting their present culture.”

RCMP Sgt. Rob Vermeulen told the Toronto Star on Tuesday that the force couldn’t comment on the conduct hearing until after the sentencing on Jan. 9.

“The hearing is still underway and the sanctions will be heard and discussed on that day,” he said. “We’re just waiting for that to happen now.”

The RCMP and Kosteckyj also went toe-to-toe in the high-profile Braidwood Commission, where the lawyer represented the mother of Robert Dziekanski, the Polish man who died after being Tasered by the RCMP.

Kosteckyj said one of the things he learned while on the Dziekanski file was that the first thing the RCMP does when accusations are levelled against the force is to “circle the wagons.”

“The way the RCMP deals with problems is to go after the accuser and isolate that person to make them feel bad,” said Kosteckyj.

Gastaldo’s sexual history was investigated by the RCMP, he said, but no similar investigation was done on her co-accused.

Former RCMP officer Janet Merlo said the RCMP’s system of investigating themselves has made it difficult for any complaints to lead to punishment or dismissals against accused harassers within the force.

“A lot of us have been speaking up for years about harassment in the workplace and it’s gone unnoticed or diminished or swept under the rug or ignored. A class-action lawsuit is the only way to make them stand up and listen and be held accountable,” she said.

The lawsuit will be filed in early January in B.C. Supreme Court.

The issue of harassment against female officers emerged last month when former RCMP spokeswoman Catherine Galliford told the CBC about prolonged abuse and bullying by her colleagues.

Merlo said she has seen marriages destroyed, careers abandoned and health issues become permanent over the sustained bullying she and other female officers have faced.

Vancouver lawyer Rod Hayley, who is not involved in the class action lawsuit but is an expert in launching such cases, said for the suit to be successfully certified by the courts, the plaintiffs must prove there is sufficient commonality among the cases.

“If the individual issues outweigh the common issues, it may not be certified,” he said. “The problem I see in this case is you’re talking about a bunch of people who have been allegedly harassed or discriminated against and each of those will have their own stories to tell and all of the incidents will have happened in different times and places.”

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What will likely be argued by the plaintiffs, Hayley said, is that even though these are individual cases of alleged harassment and abuse, there was systemic negligence by the force as a whole in dealing with the allegations.

University of British Columbia law professor Margot Young said the courts have found that in work forces that are traditionally male-dominated, there is strong evidence of sexual harassment and difficulties in integrating women.

“When you think of what’s happening now in the RCMP, to have woman after woman coming forward with similar tales, that becomes very convincing,” she said. “A key part of this will be whether appropriate action was taken.”

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