After a rare motion calling for a high-ranking Toronto police officer to be removed as the adjudicator from the upcoming Neptune Four hearing, that same officer has cleared himself of appearing biased and ruled he can oversee the high-profile disciplinary hearing set to begin this summer.

The decision, released by Insp. Richard Hegedus on Friday, comes four months after Toronto police Const. Adam Lourenco filed an unusual motion to see Hegedus removed as the hearing officer — effectively, the tribunal's judge — on the case, alleging that Hegedus recently committed misconduct himself and that Toronto police “let him off the hook.”

The “disappointing” decision is being held up by top police lawyer Peter Brauti, who represented Lourenco at the hearing on the motion in December, as a clear case for independent adjudication of police tribunals, something he calls a “necessary reform.”

“The perception of the public is that the ‘fix is in’ and police officers get off easy because they are being judged by their own colleagues. Rank and file police officers believe the ‘fix is in’ because the management gets to (lay) the charges, pick the prosecutor and pick the hearing officer to decide the outcome of the case,” Brauti said in an email Monday.

“Either way the general perception is that the tribunal is a tool to serve the ends of management and not the ends of justice.”

Brauti says he has instructions to appeal.

The allegations contained in Lourenco's motion, denied by Hegedus in his ruling, stem from a separate case where Hegedus was found by Ontario's Civilian Police Commission to have given an unlawful order to a subordinate to change, on an official document, who was at fault in a vehicle collision.

Lourenco, one of two officers facing misconduct charges in connection to the 2011 Neptune Four case, alleged in his motion that there is a reasonable perception that Hegedus would not decide the case in an impartial manner.

That is in large part because of the potential perception that Hegedus could harbour animosity against his lawyer, Lawrence Gridin, who in a previous tribunal hearing represented the cop who was ordered to change the accident document, and called Hegedus' order “unlawful, outrageous and criminal.”

Lourenco's motion was argued at a Toronto police tribunal in December, with Hegedus adjudicating.

In his 78-page decision, Hegedus concludes that Lourenco's motion failed to show that there are enough grounds to justify his own removal from the case because of the possible perception of bias.

“I have made no comments and have taken no action which could be construed as indicating a bias to any of the parties,” Hegedus writes.

Regarding potential hard feelings Hegedus may have towards Gridin, Hegedus said Lourenco's motion did not demonstrate “that my actions towards him or Mr. Gridin have given rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.”

“The assumption that I would harbour animosity towards Mr. Gridin is just that, an assumption,” Hegedus writes, adding he accepts Gridin's prior criticisms of him “were made in the process of providing a vigorous defence defending for his client.”

Lourenco's motion was brought forward last fall, before the beginning of the hearing into the controversial gunpoint arrest of four black teens, an incident that has become known as the Neptune Four case.

The boys — three of them 15 years old at the time, one 16 years old — were walking along Neptune Dr., though a public housing complex on their way to a mentoring session for kids in at-risk neighbourhoods when they were stopped by Lourenco and Const. Scharnil Pais, both from the now-defunct Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit.

It is alleged that the interaction became violent after one of the boys attempted to exercise his right to walk away — that one officer threw punches and drew his gun, backup police cruisers were called, and the four boys were arrested and charged with assaulting police. All charges were later dropped.

The province's Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) investigated the incident and found the stop violated the boys’ Charter rights. As a result of the OIPRD probe, the two officers now face a total of four misconduct charges under Ontario’s Police Services Act.

Peter Rosenthal, the lawyer for three of the four boys, now adults, said Monday that his main concern has been the delay caused in proceeding with the charges against Lourenco and Pais. He said he will be arguing that Lourenco should be dismissed from the force, in part for drawing his gun, which he's alleged to have done.

“In my view, his continued presence on the force represents a danger to the public because of both the possibility of Lourenco's using lethal force and the message his presence gives to other officers,” Rosenthal wrote in an email Monday.

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

The misconduct case at the heart of Lourenco's bias motion stems from a 2013 accident between a police scout car and a civilian vehicle. Hegedus was acting unit commander at 33 Division, where the accident took place, and one of Hegedus’ subordinates, Const. Kevin Drake, probed the collision.

Drake concluded the civilian driver was at fault, which he stated in an official Ministry of Transportation Motor Vehicle Collision Report. Later, Hegedus ordered Drake to change that finding and conclude the police officer was at fault — something Drake refused to do because he did not believe that to be true.

As a result, Drake was charged with insubordination for failing to follow Hegedus' orders.

At the disciplinary hearing, Gridin, then representing Drake, alleged Hegedus “had engaged in deceit and possibly the criminal offence of obstruction of justice” by ordering Drake to change the result of his investigation.

Drake was found guilty, but appealed to Ontario's Civilian Police Commission, which overturned the finding, ruling that Hegedus ordered a subordinate to falsify an official record.

Toronto police did “absolutely nothing,” then Hegedus was appointed as the sole permanent hearing officer, Lourenco’s lawyers Gridin and Brauti wrote in the motion, adding the optics are “appalling.”

Responding to the allegation that his appointment as a hearing officer could “bring the reputation of the Toronto police into disrepute,” Hegedus said in his ruling that his order to Drake to change who was at fault in the collision was given to correct an error pointed out to him by traffic experts.

“Since the context for my actions does not support a suggestion of misconduct, then the reputation of the (Toronto police) has not been brought into disrepute as a result. That argument cannot hold,” Hegedus wrote, in a decision released Friday.

Rosenthal said that despite the delay caused by the motion, he agrees that there is institutional bias built into the police disciplinary system, including that the chief of police appoints the hearing officers and the prosecutors.

He expressed hope that the ongoing review of police oversight in Ontario, led by Justice Michael Tulloch, “recommends procedures that provide independence from the police of adjudicators and prosecutors in police disciplinary proceedings.”

Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, has previously said the union also supports independent adjudication at police tribunals.

The Neptune Four hearing is scheduled to begin in August.