OTTAWA—It is supposed to be one of the country’s top police units — a crack RCMP team that protects the prime minister and his family around the clock, around the world.

However, the prime minister’s personal security detail is a fractured unit, where allegations of harassment and career sabotage are now slung back and forth and internal suspicions are corroding crucial trust.

The Star has learned that RCMP Supt. Bruno Saccomani, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s bodyguard since 2006 who is about to become Canada’s ambassador to Jordan, faces several ongoing investigations for workplace harassment.

And now, in a hard push back against his detractors, Saccomani’s allies are pointing a finger at others in the elite unit or RCMP brass for orchestrating a campaign to get rid of the officer in charge of the specialized detail called PMPD. One Mountie, Insp. Alain Petit, claims it has put the entire unit as well as Harper and his family at risk.

It’s a tangled story told through sources who spoke only on condition of anonymity, and documents obtained by the Star. At its heart is Saccomani, the Mountie who shadows Harper everywhere, enjoys the Prime Minister’s confidence, and one of the very few said to be able to enter his office unannounced.

Since taking charge of the unit in 2006, Saccomani has beefed up the protective detail, boosting resources, fitness and vigilance. A self-described perfectionist, Saccomani takes credit for devising a specialized nine-month training course that those who want to work with the unit must take. He enjoys fierce loyalty among Harper staffers in the PMO, and commands it from many of the Mounties who work under him. But he has alienated others who criticize him as a bullying boss who plays favourites.

Last year, word leaked to Radio-Canada that Saccomani had undergone a review of his management style. He was required to get coaching from a workplace mentor.

RCMP Comm. Bob Paulson called the leak of the internal report “unlawful” and said the RCMP was working with Saccomani to resolve the issues. “It’s not a discipline case. The underlying need here is to correct behaviour, not to punish people,” Paulson said in June 2012.

But sources say the problems did give rise to formal complaints.

The Star has learned Saccomani faces an investigation under the Canada Labour Code into harassment in the workplace lodged by RCMP staff relations representatives on behalf of unnamed Mounties who work under him. The RCMP has appointed an outside company, Quintet Consulting Corp., to investigate that complaint — an investigation Saccomani is now challenging as unfair and biased in correspondence from his lawyer, obtained by the Star.

Sources say Saccomani also faces two complaints under the RCMP’s internal Code of Conduct, which allege physical pushing or shoving of fellow RCMP employees under his watch, as well as two other internal complaints of harassment — related to bullying behaviour — which haven’t reached the stage of a formal disciplinary inquiry under the code.

Saccomani denies he has acted improperly, and his defender in the unit, Insp. Alain Petit, says it is the leak of the management review itself that has created the biggest problem.

In a formal request to the top Mountie for an independent investigation, Petit said the leaked document contained vital information about the “inner workings” of the Prime Minister’s security detail that could be used by someone who might wish to “cause harm to the Prime Minister and his family,” thereby putting them “at greater risk of violence,” as well as those whose job it is to protect the Harpers.

It has all broken out in the open in spectacular fashion.

Saccomani is in line for the Jordanian embassy although his diplomatic appointment was not formally announced or confirmed. A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told the Star the Saccomani appointment is simply media speculation. However, on Wednesday morning, the Star caught up with Saccomani as he entered diplomat school — the Canadian Foreign Service Institute run by the Department of Foreign Affairs — in Gatineau across the Ottawa River.

Saccomani, who has not yet left the RCMP, was in plain clothes and replied “No” when asked if he would speak to the allegations.

When the suggestions of bullying and intimidation first arose, current and former PMO officials defended Saccomani, crediting him for finally whipping the Prime Minister’s personal security detail into a shipshape modern bodyguard unit.

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But it is not just the PMO that has praised him. The Star obtained a copy of Saccomani’s most recent performance review showing he impressed a senior RCMP manager with his performance from April 2012 to March 2013.

Indeed, the performance review commends Saccomani for his strong relationship with the Prime Minister, his leadership of the unit, and says he is someone who “leads by example and has the interests of the members always at heart” as he pushes for more resources, better equipment and training.

But, in the past six weeks, tensions have risen to a new level. On May 13, Saccomani’s lawyer, Peter Mantas, challenged the impartiality of the outside consultant hired to look into the complaints against him, suggesting there is a “witch hunt” or a “vendetta by certain members of the RCMP leadership (or brass)” against him.

Insp. Alain Petit, also represented by Mantas, wrote to Comm. Paulson on April 15 to formally demand action investigating the leak, filing a complaint as well under the same Canada Labour Code section designed to prevent violence in the workplace that Saccomani’s critics have used.

Mantas wrote that the RCMP “has not acted to investigate and confront” the unresolved issues. He demanded that an independent investigator with experience as a “senior and respected person from another major protection unit with experience protecting a national leader” be named to investigate the leak and the efforts of unnamed individuals to “roll back” the changes Saccomani has made.

Petit’s complaint suggests on-the-job friction is unavoidable in the high-level VIP protection work. “There is little tolerance for conduct that falls short of excellence,” Petit writes.

He says intense training and discipline are necessary to reduce the risks in what is a unique workplace. “There are those who would prefer a kinder, gentler and relaxed approach to the manner by which the unit performs.”

“The members of PMPD must trust and rely on each other to work as a team. We must also rely on the rest of the RCMP for support. That trust has been broken. Someone from within the ranks of the RCMP has knowingly endangered all the PMPD members and the people we are dedicated to serve,” Petit’s formal request for an investigation states.

The RCMP refused to comment on any personnel matters regarding Saccomani, citing privacy laws.

A statement provided to the Star Thursday by RCMP media relations officer Lucy Shorey denied any risk to the Harpers.

“Security provided to the Prime Minister was at no time compromised,” it said. “The RCMP continuously reviews its security measures and practices in place in order to ensure a safe and secure environment for the Prime Minister and his family.”

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